


Modern Love

by HammerToFall



Series: Marauders Era [2]
Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Marauders' Era
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-03-26
Updated: 2018-03-26
Packaged: 2019-04-08 10:19:06
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 14
Words: 42,902
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14103240
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/HammerToFall/pseuds/HammerToFall
Summary: So, when ranking the boys in order of who she was most likely to actually be friends with, James Potter was definitely at the bottom of the list. So then WHY should she be bothered that he was suddenly showing no interest in her? It made no sense. She had begged him to leave her alone. She had practically prayed for him to stop bothering her. So why should she be upset that he had? She didn’t particularly like him. He was a prat and he was annoying. And exhausting. And moronic. And he drove Lily up the wall. She should be grateful that he seemed to have gotten bored of her. But she wasn’t. She was hurt.It made no sense.-Mostly a Jily get-together fic, but background Wolfstar and a bit of Black brothers drama too.Part of my Marauders era series, but can probably be read as a standalone piece.





	1. Solitude

**Author's Note:**

> Gosh, where do I even start with this one? 
> 
> Well, this picks up straight after the events of 'Scars', where all of the Marauders have agreed to stay away from Lily in exchange for Snape's silence about Remus's lycanthropy. 
> 
> I didn't intend for it to be anywhere near this dark, or this complicated. It was supposed to just centre around Lily and James, but I can't help myself when it comes to Wolfstar, I love them so much. Also including Regulus was unplanned, I just got struck by the idea. Honestly, so much respect to people who can release their works chapter by chapter, because mine take so many unexpected twists and turns as I write that I have to go back and edit like hell so it all makes sense!
> 
> Hopefully the end result still flows relatively smoothly. I'm pleased with how it turned out anyway, even if it wasn't what I set out to write :D

James watched moodily as Sirius and Remus made festive paper chains in front of the fire in the common room. Well, Remus was making paper chains anyway. It was part of his prefect duties, to help with the decorations around the castle. Sirius was definitely hindering the process more than he was helping, wrapping the chains around Remus and writing rude words on the slips of paper. Remus was amused rather than annoyed though, and the two of them looked like they were having the time of their life.

James knew that he was perfectly welcome to join them, but he wasn’t feeling in much of a festive mood. Frankly all the Christmas cheer going on around the castle was making him a bit grouchy. He usually liked Christmas, but this year it just felt a bit… well, let’s face it – he was lonely.

Christmas was a time for games, and cosy nights indoors, and good food shared with loved ones. It was a time to think about thoughtful gifts to get for someone special. It was a time to snuggle up next to someone under a blanket, with a warm mug of hot chocolate. James wasn’t usually this pathetic about it. After all, he had never really had a girlfriend, so he didn’t know why it should matter to him so much now that he still didn’t. But this year he found himself really craving that sort of intimacy. Maybe it was seeing Sirius and Remus so sickeningly happy together that made him realise what he was missing. Or maybe he was just lonely in general, now that Remus and Sirius were spending so much time alone together. Or maybe it was the distinct Lily Evans shaped hole in his life that was making him feel this way.

He was quite certain that his increased irritability and lack of enthusiasm for the holiday season had a lot to do with his promise to Snape. James was a man of his word and had done exactly as Snape had asked. Well, almost exactly - he could hardly stop himself from looking at her, ever. Not that he stared or anything. Well, not on purpose anyway. But he hadn’t spoken to her, and she hadn’t spoken to him since that time outside potions with Remus. And that was months ago now.

He didn’t know why it should be such a big deal. It’s not like they were great friends or anything. It’s not even like they were friends. They used to talk sometimes, but more often than not the subject of conversation has been why she would NOT go out with him. He had felt like he was wearing her down though. Like they were making progress. But maybe that was just wishful thinking. In any case, it didn’t matter now.

“You alright?” Peter asked, sitting down on the sofa next to James. James tried to stop frowning, but couldn’t quite manage it.

“Yeah, fine” he said flatly, still watching Remus and Sirius resentfully. Sirius had conjured a snow cloud over Remus, and Remus was laughing as he took a handful of snow off his shoulder and dropped it over Sirius’s head.

“You still mad at Sirius?” Peter asked, following his gaze.

“Nah, not really” James replied. He had never really been angry AT Sirius. What he had done was stupid, for sure, but he hadn’t meant for it all to blow up the way it had. And he _was_ sorry. No, James was angry at the situation. He was angry at Snape. And he was angry at how much it _hurt_ , having to see Lily every day and not being able to DO anything.

“Still thinking about Lily though?” Peter probed. James shrugged moodily. He didn’t want to talk about it. He was sick of thinking about it.

“Those two aren’t helping, I bet” Peter added. James smiled in spite of himself. Peter was surprisingly perceptive sometimes.

“It’s not their fault” James said, his expression softening. Sirius was now brushing the snow out of Remus’s hair, and the two of them were looking affectionately at each other. It was a little vomit-inducing, but it was also nice. They both deserved that. To have someone who looked at them like that.

“They look happy, don’t they?” James said, looking at Peter. He was watching them with mild envy on his face.

“Yeah, they do.”

 

-

 

A couple of hours later James was roaming the corridors by himself. He had taken to walking aimlessly around the castle, when all the resentment built up and got slightly too much for him. What he would _really_ liked to have done was go out on his broomstick, but it was quite late now and it had been pitch black outside for hours. In an attempt to get the pent up energy out of himself he would flat out sprint down an empty corridor every now and then. He probably looked completely mental, and he was quite sure McGonagall would think he was up to something if she came across him. But he couldn’t really bring himself to care. It’s not like he really cared what anyone thought anyway.

Bloody hell, he thought to himself, cheer up for christ’s sake, it’s not THAT bad. He broke out into a run down the corridor, trying to divert his energy away from his brain and into his muscles. He saw someone turning the corner at the end a little too late, and even though he tried to stop, he skidded along the floor and crashed straight into them. He didn’t even realise who the person was that he’d collided with until he began to untangle his limbs from theirs and a very familiar voice (in a very familiar angry tone) started scolding him.

“Potter, you _idiot_ , don’t you ever look where you’re going?” Lily barked at him, pushing his legs none-too-gently off herself and throwing her long red hair back out of her face. James immediately felt his face start to turn red, and vaguely wished that the ground would swallow him whole right now. She was the exact LAST person he wanted to see right now. Because of course she was the ONLY person he _really_ wanted to see right now.

“I’m sorry, Evans, really, so sorry. I tried to stop.”

He scrambled to his feet and reached out a hand to help her up. She batted it away, looking annoyed and stood up on her own.

“What are you running for anyway?” she asked suspiciously, peering down the corridor behind him, as if expecting to see someone else running after him.

“Nothing” James said, a little too quickly. His cheeks were still burning and he was aware he looked guilty as hell, but there was no way he was going to tell her the REAL reason. He’d sooner get detention.

“Riiight” she replied sceptically. “Look Potter, whatever you’re up to, just… I don’t know, try not to hurt anyone or break anything, alright?” she sighed and began walking away, back the way she had just come from. “And if McGonagall asks, I wasn’t here, yeah?” she called back. James was confused. Without really thinking about it, he started trotting after her.

“I’m not up to anything, I promise” he insisted. “You can go back that way, it’s fine, there’s nothing there.”

“Well, A – I don’t believe you” she rolled her eyes. “And B – I don’t actually need to go that way. I’m on patrol, I don’t really have a destination.”

“Oh right. Prefect duty.”

“Yep.”

There was an uncomfortable silence as they continued to walk together. James was well aware he should leave now. He didn’t want word of him walking around the castle with Lily getting back to Snape. But Lily was acting strangely. She would usually have grilled him much harder about the prank she suspected him of setting up. And her general demeanour was very cold. Indifferent, almost. Lily was certainly not always James’s biggest fan, but she was never indifferent towards him. That was what had always given him hope.

“Um, Evans…?” he began tentatively, unable to help himself.

“Hmm?” she replied, not looking at him.

“Is everything alright?”

“Yes of course it is” she said, in a tone that very much suggested otherwise.

“OK…” James wasn’t really sure how to proceed without directly insulting her. “It’s just… you seem a bit… put out…”

“Why would that be, do you think?” she asked pointedly. James wasn’t really sure what she was getting at but she clearly expected him to know something. He looked at her, nonplussed, studying her face for clues. She looked annoyed, but he still didn’t really know why. With anyone else he would have dismissed this sort of behaviour (he could just imagine Sirius throwing up his hands and saying ‘ _girls_ ’ in an exasperated voice), but Lily didn’t play stupid mind games like the rest of the girls he knew. She was much too clever for that. If she was angry with him then he must have done something.

“Is it because I just knocked you over? Look, I’m really sorry-“

“It’s not because of that” she cut him off.

“I don’t…” James didn’t understand. How could he have pissed her off? He hadn’t even spoken to her in months. He racked his brains but he really couldn’t think of anything he done that would have affected her in any way.

“I’m sorry Lily, I don’t understand” he pleaded.

“Yeah, I don’t understand either!” she snapped. James took a step to the side, putting a little more distance between them. She was scary when she was angry. “Lately you’ve been treating me like I’ve got the plague! I know we’re not exactly mates or anything, but you could at least look me in the eye. And if you can’t even do that, then at least explain to me why you’re so disgusted by me all of a sudden! That pureblood prejudice isn’t catching, is it?”

Her tone was defiant, but a very slight waver of her voice on that last sentence betrayed her resolve. James dared a quick glance into her eyes and saw the hurt, behind the anger.

“Merlin, of course not!” he insisted, stepping in front of her to stop her walking and making her look at him. “You’ve seen me hex a thousand people who have been talking shit about muggle-borns, how can you possibly think that’s what this is about?”

“Well, what IS it about then?” she demanded. She was still acting fierce, but James was sure he saw a glimmer of relief in her eyes.

“I…” He faltered. He couldn’t tell her about Snape. She already knew about Moony, but there were far too many other secrets tangled up in this one. Besides, he was quite sure that telling Lily about his deal with Snape would be tantamount to breaking said deal.

“I can’t…” he said desperately.

She scowled at him and side-stepped around him, continuing to stalk down the corridor. Again, James followed.

“I’m sorry Lily, I don’t want it to be like this. I just… I can’t…”

“Can’t WHAT, Potter?”

James ran a hand roughly through his hair. He felt like ripping it out. The frustration was unbelievable. But he couldn’t explain. He couldn’t tell her why.

He also suddenly became aware that they were headed straight towards the Slytherin common room. The likelihood of running into someone who would tell on him to Snape was increasing. James knew he needed to get out of there now.

“I just can’t” he said quietly, standing still and letting her walk away. She got about ten feet away from him before turning around, looking hurt. The two of them stared at each other for a long time, before James silently turned around and walked away.


	2. First Impressions

Lily couldn't remember the first time that she met each of the Gryffindor boys in her year. It was presumably some time in their first week of school, around the common room or during class. She did however distinctly remember the first time each of them made an impression on her.

James Potter was undoubtedly the worst. He and Severus had gotten into a huge fight about half way through first year. Lily still didn’t know what about - she didn't want to, quite frankly - but Potter had hit Severus with a body bind curse in front of the whole school in the great hall at lunchtime, resulting in raucous laughter from everyone else and general humiliation for poor Sev. And as Potter had looked around at the cheering crowd Lily could tell he thought he was some sort of champion. Lily had wanted to punch his lights out. 

The subsequent years had done little to counter this impression that Lily had of James Potter - that he was a bully and an arrogant toerag. And as if that wasn't bad enough, ever since fourth year James had asked Lily out constantly, despite her resolutely insisting she would rather date the giant squid. He just didn't seem to be giving up. And she rather suspected it had more to do with him proving he could get any girl he wanted, rather than actually being interested in her personally. As they had entered their teens many of Lily's classmates started swooning over him, and whilst Lily could objectively see the appeal (he WAS annoyingly handsome - as if his ego needed feeding any more), she was NOT interested. 

Sirius Black appeared on Lily's radar much later. Around the same time that he appeared on pretty much the whole school's radar, in fact, in quite a dramatic fashion. Lily had seen him around, and she was aware of him and Potter being joined at the hip. She was also vaguely aware that he came from one of those all-Slytherin pureblood families and was something of a rebel against that whole scene. The girls in Lily's dorm talked about this a lot. If they swooned over Potter then they were practically falling over themselves for Sirius Black. Lily didn't see it personally. He was a bit TOO much like those guys on the glossy covers of the teen witch magazines that all the girls read. He looked like he spent more time in front of the mirror than the girls did, and who on earth could be bothered with that? For reasons that didn't entirely make sense to Lily, all the girls seemed to think that Sirius being potentially outcast by his family made him much more attractive. Again, Lily rather thought she couldn't be bothered with the hassle. The boy seemed somewhat unstable at times. He got into even more fights than Potter (which was really saying something) and they had all seen him moodily stalking around the Gryffindor tower with a cigarette hanging out of his mouth and a bottle of firewhisky in one hand.

But Lily, along with everyone else, was forced to re-evaluate her preconceived opinions of him when one day in third year he had stood up on top of the table at dinner, calling for everyone's attention. He had announced to the entire hall something along the lines of "all you girls are wasting your time batting your eyelashes at me, because I'm just not interested." He had then pulled Jimmy Fletcher (a boy their house, in the year above) up onto the table with him and snogged him, right there in front of everyone. Lily remembered Marlene and Mary gasping in horror, and the general shockwave that had rippled through the crowd. Lily had been as surprised as anyone, but mostly she was impressed. Being openly gay in the muggle world wasn't an easy thing to do at all, and whilst Lily didn't really know where the wizard world stood on the whole thing, she was sure it still wasn't exactly the done thing to just come out like that. Lily thought it was incredibly brave. And as a result, she decided that he was maybe just a tiny little bit more respectable than Potter. Just a fraction.

Pettigrew went almost beneath Lily's notice for a very long time. She had seen him hanging around with the other three Gryffindor boys in their year, but he didn't seem to be very much like them. He was much more quiet and much less eager to get into trouble. Well, that was the impression she had of him anyway, until the huge party in the Gryffindor common room at the end of fourth year, after they had won the quidditch cup. Potter and Black had made sure a generous supply of firewhisky was on offer, of which Peter had taken full advantage. And suddenly his true personality was unleashed, any hint of shyness gone completely. He was dancing on tables, and chatting up girls (very badly and unsuccessfully) and was, to everyone's complete surprise, the life of the party. He was in fact, like a slightly less confrontational version of Potter, and for the first time Lily actually understood where he fit into their little group (the 'Marauders', they called themselves). She decided she liked him much more than Potter or Black.

But of the four boys, Remus was definitely her favourite. He was certainly the one she was most likely to consider a friend. He came to her attention on Halloween of second year, when the boys had executed what was in Lily's opinion one of their better pranks. It was very silly, but very funny nevertheless, and it was completely harmless. It was one in which no-one was hurt or even embarrassed in any way, and even the staff weren't particularly inconvenienced. These were the sorts of pranks that Lily approved of. Basically they had enchanted all of the pumpkin jack-o-lanterns in the great hall to burst into song at random intervals throughout the night. 

It had started with three of the pumpkins up by the staff table doing a chorus of "Build Me Up Buttercup". About five minutes later a cluster over by the Slytherin table sang "Sweet Caroline". By the time they had finished a group by the Gryffindor table had started singing "My Ding-a-Ling", at which point all four of the marauders were in hysterics, wiping tears of laughter from their eyes. Lily knew in an instant that Remus had masterminded the whole thing, since he was the only one of the four who knew muggle music at the time. A few of the professors had seemed rather annoyed by the whole thing, but Dumbledore had found it hilarious, and had just let it go on, even joining in the singing with some of the songs. It was bloody brilliant.

In the subsequent years Lily had gotten to know Remus a little. They were both quite keen students so they partnered up in class or on homework projects sometimes. And they were both made prefects in fifth year. Lily rather thought that Remus was made a prefect due to the lack of other options amongst the boys in their year, because he certainly wasn't one to abide by the rules. But he was nowhere near as bad as Black and Potter, and he was less easily swayed than Pettigrew. He was still just as much of a troublemaker as his friends, but was determined that no-one should suffer in any way at the hands of their mischief. And that in a nutshell was what Lily considered to separate Remus from the others. Lily wasn't a goody-two-shoes or anything, she was fine with mischief. But her fundamental issue with Potter and Black was that they didn't care about the consequences, or collateral damage. Remus was also much less quick to anger, and less likely to fight anyone, which Lily liked about him. 

It was Severus who had first tipped Lily off about Remus being a werewolf. He had worked it out, based on Remus frequently missing class around the full moon. Lily had told him he was crazy, but she privately agreed that what he was saying made sense. She had observed Remus over the next couple of months and confirmed her suspicions. In fact, once you started looking for it there was a multitude of evidence right in front of you. How his eyes turned golden-yellow around the full moon. How he'd be all pale and sickly after it. Not to mention the fact that his idiot friends called him 'Moony' - how obvious can you get?

This discovery about Remus did not particularly trouble Lily. She continued to tell Severus she doubted his theory, because she knew he would feel differently. But the way Lily saw it, it was just an illness. Something he couldn't help. Anyone who had actually MET Remus could surely see how gentle and good-natured he was. She had told him as much too, which had further strengthened their alliance.

So, when ranking the boys in order of who she was most likely to actually be friends with, James Potter was definitely at the bottom of the list. So then WHY should she be bothered that he was suddenly showing no interest in her? It made no sense. She had begged him to leave her alone. She had practically prayed for him to stop bothering her. So why should she be upset that he had? She didn’t particularly like him. He was a prat and he was annoying. And exhausting. And moronic. And he drove Lily up the wall. She should be grateful that he seemed to have gotten bored of her. But she wasn’t. She was hurt.  
It made no sense.


	3. The Fight

Sirius was wrapping Remus’s legs up in one end of the paper chain that Remus was still working on, wondering how far he could get with mummifying him before Remus told him to piss off. Mildly antagonising Remus had always been one of his favourite pastimes, but it was especially rewarding now that Remus would look at him with THAT expression. The I-am-slightly-annoyed-but-I-also-want-to-laugh-but-more-than-anything-I-want-to-kiss-you-until-we-can’t-breathe-anymore expression. Sirius loved that expression. In fact, if Remus carried on giving him that expression he was going to have to drag him upstairs to do exactly that. 

He was just wondering how difficult it would be to persuade Remus to call it a night when James came storming into the room. Sirius opened his mouth to ask where he’d been, but before he got a word out James’s fist made contact with his eye socket.

Sirius fell backwards onto the rug, seeing stars. He heard Remus jump up and James cry out in surprise and possibly pain (it was difficult to tell, but it sounded as though Remus had just punched James). Sirius sat up abruptly, blinking rapidly trying to clear his vision so he could intervene before this got out of hand. 

It had apparently already gotten out of hand. Remus was holding James in a headlock, while James was punching him in the leg and yelling for Peter to do something. Peter was frozen on the spot, watching wide-eyed as Remus snarled at everyone in the vicinity to stay out of it. Some random seventh year decided to be a hero and attempted to wrestle Remus off of James, and Remus pushed them away forcefully. Remus looked pretty scrawny (well, he was pretty scrawny) but he had wolf-strength, and the seventh year fell backwards into Peter, causing them both to crash to the floor in a heap. One of the seventh year’s mates cried out in protest.

“ALRIGHT, fucking hell!” Sirius shouted as he scrambled up, holding one hand over his rapidly swelling eye. He went over to Peter and the seventh year first, helping them both up and giving the random guy an apologetic grimace. This seemed to suffice as an apology, and although he still looked annoyed he went back to his friends. Sirius then turned his attention to Remus, who looked furious and still hadn’t let go of James, who was starting to turn purple.

“Moony, let him go” Sirius said quietly, placing a gentle hand on Remus’s shoulder. Remus scowled at him but did as he said. James staggered backwards none too gracefully, and assumed a defensive stance. Sirius bit back a laugh, not wanting to escalate things. He could take James in a fight any day, so he wasn’t remotely worried. He didn’t particularly want to have to kick James’s arse though, if he could avoid it.

“Prongs, WHY?” Sirius demanded.

“She HATES me” James spat at him, and Sirius was a little taken aback by the malice in his voice.

“She doesn’t hate you” Sirius told him, assuming they were talking about Evans.

“She DOES, and it’s your fucking fault!” James shouted, advancing on Sirius again.

Sirius grabbed hold of him, trying to wrestle his arms behind his back but James managed to wrench one hand free and punched him again, this time in the side of the head. 

Sirius released him in surprise and James got a few more hits in, using his finely tuned hand-eye-coordination to slip his fists in between Sirius’s arms as he tried to shield himself. Sirius ignored the crowd that had formed around them, chanting ‘fight, fight, fight...’ Vaguely in the back of his mind he registered that James must be very upset, because this was a colossally stupid thing to do. He may have the quidditch star coordination, but he was certainly no match for Sirius, who was an experienced fighter. 

Sirius tried to restrain James again, but one particularly well aimed punch hit him square in the jaw. Sirius tasted the blood in his mouth and anger took over.  
Sirius punched James back with quite some force, making his nose gush with blood. James continued to fight back, but in no time at all Sirius was straddling James who was on his back on the floor. Sirius wasn’t even sure exactly how they had gotten there, but he was laying into James with both fists, yelling something or other about how he would make him pay. 

“SIRIUS!” Remus screeched. The panic in his voice brought Sirius back to his senses and he froze, breathing hard, one fist gripping the front of James’s shirt and the other raised over him ready for the next hit. He realised with a lurch of shame that James had stopped fighting, and was now holding his arms over his own face, which was covered with blood from his nose. Sirius hastily released him and got up off the floor, feeling slightly sick at how scared Remus and Peter looked. Not to mention the deathly silence that had fallen over the whole common room, as all the spectators stared at them, wide eyed in shock.

He reached a hand out to help James up, who begrudgingly accepted it, scowling at him. 

“Sorry mate” Sirius muttered. James didn’t reply, and instead looked around at the crowd around them.

“Don’t you all have anything better to do?!” he barked at them. A few people in the front row looked a little sheepish and the crowd started to disperse, a low buzz of chatter breaking the silence. 

“Are you alright?” Sirius asked James seriously, as James started wiping the blood off his face with his sleeve. He looked a lot less dramatic with the excess blood largely cleaned off. Sirius was relieved to see he didn’t seem to be in too much of a state. He wondered vaguely how bad he looked, as he could barely see out of his right eye which apparently had almost swollen shut.

“Obviously not” James replied moodily, slumping down onto a nearby sofa. “I just had my arse handed to me in front of the whole house.”

“Well, that’ll happen when you walk in and deck Pads for no reason” Remus said flatly, sitting down next to him and holding his head still while he performed some sort of healing charm on his nose. Sirius walked over to get a closer look at James, relieved that everything seemed to be OK. James’s nose stopped bleeding and his face seemed to soften as the healing charm took effect. He was muttering something about it not having been for no reason, but Remus ignored him while he turned around to heal Sirius’s eye. 

“I am sorry. I kind of lost it for a minute there” Sirius said, addressing both James and Remus, while he perched on the arm of the sofa. Remus gave him a grim smile as he gently touched his eye with the tip of his wand and Sirius felt some of the pressure in the area alleviate. 

“Whatever” James muttered, not looking at either of them. Sirius knew that James’s pride was far too damaged right now to admit he’d done anything wrong, or to accept Sirius’s apology. But the fact that he was sat here next to Sirius and not hurling abuse at him probably meant that they were alright. 

“I would have stopped” Sirius added quietly, more to Remus than to James. Remus nodded but continued to scowl. He still looked quite pissed off about the whole thing, which Sirius could hardly blame him for. He was always the one taking care of the pair of them, like this. He must be completely sick of their shit by now. 

“What would we do without you, Moons” Sirius smiled gratefully, as he felt the area around his eye shrink back to normal size.

“Kill each other, probably” Remus replied in an aloof tone, but he smiled begrudgingly as Sirius winked at him with his now-normal-size eye.

“I’m going to bed!” James snapped abruptly, and with that he marched upstairs to the dorm. Sirius watched him go, frowning. This was all getting very out of hand, but Sirius didn’t know what to do about it. He and James needed to talk about it. Properly. But not tonight. James needed to calm down first.

“What the bloody hell was that?” Peter asked, taking the seat that James had just vacated. 

“Fucked if I know, mate” Sirius replied, still staring thoughtfully at the foot of the stairs.


	4. People talk

Lily stormed up to the dorm as soon as she got back from her prefect patrol. The altercation with James Potter had put her in quite a bad mood. He obviously had a problem, and she didn’t see WHY he wouldn’t say what it was. Unless it really did have something to do with her muggle heritage. Potter didn’t seem the type to buy into that shit. But Lily didn’t trust her own judgement on that subject anymore, ever since what had happened with Severus. She felt rattled.

Severus had been her only proper friend for a long time. She hadn’t really bonded with the girls in her dorm as well as they had with each other. Lily largely attributed this to herself not being much of a girly-girl. She had no interest in makeovers, or gossiping about boys. She didn’t read the girly magazines, or agonize over how to wear her hair. She didn’t even own any makeup. She often lamented the fact that all the boys in her year were such prats, as she probably would have hung around with them instead, otherwise. Not to say she didn't get on well enough with the girls. Things were definitely improving as they got older, and the others were less interested in vapid gossip. But she was definitely feeling the loss of her first and best friend.

Severus had been the one who had taught her what she was and what she could do. He had helped her to navigate the wizarding world back when it was all completely new and unbelievable and a little overwhelming. And she knew that this sentimentality was what had made her overlook the darkness in him for so long. Because she couldn’t deny now that it had always been there. But even she never would have guessed that he would call her a _mudblood_. In front of everyone, no less. And now she didn’t know who to trust. Who else might be thinking those things about her.

Things were subtly changing in the wizarding world, Lily could feel it. All this stuff in the newspapers - the rise of this so called ‘death eater' movement. It made Lily very uneasy. This man who was leading them, saying all this awful stuff about protecting bloodlines and wizarding superiority over muggles. He wasn’t explicitly _saying_ that muggleborns should be eradicated (not yet, anyway), but it was definitely implied in his manifesto. But what worried Lily more was the fact that a lot of the purebloods seemed to agree with what he was saying -particularly the part about muggleborns being generally inferior. They seemed to be glad that someone was finally saying what they had always been thinking. Severus apparently being one of them. Maybe Potter was too.

Lily shook her head as she trudged up the stairs to the dorm, trying to push the thought out of her mind. She was probably overthinking the whole thing. What Potter had said was true, she _had_ witnessed him hexing people for saying the word mudblood. Severus included. Whatever this _was_ about, it probably wasn’t that. But she was none the wiser as to what it WAS about. Apparently he was just being a dick for no reason at all. Well, she thought angrily, nothing new there.

“Oh my God, Lily!” Mary exclaimed as she entered the room. “You’ll never guess what happened with Potter and Black earlier!”

“I don’t want to hear a damn thing about James Potter right now!” Lily snapped. Mary looked shocked and froze in the action of braiding Marlene’s hair. Lily felt a little guilty, but the guilt was quickly eclipsed by another flare of annoyance at Potter, for putting her into this bad mood in the first place.

“What’s up with YOU?” Marlene asked, frowning. Lily sighed.

“James Potter is a complete and total twat, that’s what’s up with me” she muttered, digging some fresh pyjamas out of the bag at the foot of her bed.

“Well yeah” Marlene agreed nonchalantly. “But is there a reason you’re biting Mary’s head off about it?”

Lily felt guilty again. She turned around to face the both of them and Mary looked at her rather coldly.

“I’m sorry” she said, sincerely. Mary’s expression softened but Marlene continued to look at her suspiciously.

“I just… got into it a little bit with him earlier” Lily told them. “It doesn’t matter, really…”

Mary and Marlene exchanged a knowing look.

“What?” Lily asked, frowning.

“How long ago was this?” Marlene asked.

“I don’t know. Couple of hours?” Lily shrugged. Mary and Marlene did that look at each other again.

“ _What?_ ” she repeated, exasperated.

“Well…” Mary offered, hesitantly. “It’s just that, Potter walked into the common room about an hour ago and punched Black right in the face.”

“What?!” Lily sat down on the edge of Marlene’s bed with the other two, her mind reeling from this revelation.

“Yeah” Marlene nodded, leaning forward conspiratorially. “Black didn’t take that lying down obviously, there was a huge fight. Even Lupin got in the middle of it at one point.”

“Remus?!” This was making less and less sense to Lily. She couldn’t ever imagine Remus fighting with ANYONE, let alone two of his best friends.

“Yeah” Mary chimed in excitedly, dropping Marlene’s hair and scooting round her to sit facing the other two. “It got very ugly. Black completely lost it and just started beating the hell out of him. There was blood EVERYWHERE.” 

“Yeah, Lupin had to scream at him to stop” Marlene added darkly.

Lily looked between her and Mary, torn between interest and scepticism. She rather thought the two of them were probably exaggerating. But _something_ had obviously happened.

“Did any of them say what it was about?” Lily asked.

“Not really” Mary replied. “He didn’t say anything when he first walked in, he just hit Black. Then the whole room went into chaos, with everyone crowding around them.”

“They seemed to sort of make up afterwards though” Marlene added thoughtfully. “Black helped Potter up and Lupin started healing the pair of them.”

Lily frowned thoughtfully, wondering what on earth could have started it all. Was it possible it had something to do with what she and James had argued about earlier?

“I know, right?” Mary said, incorrectly interpreting Lily’s expression. “Boys are strange.”

“Bizarre creatures” Marlene agreed. 

At that moment, Dorcas entered the dorm carrying a large thermos flask.

“Oh God, Lily!” she cried, skipping over to the bed where the other three girls sat. “Have you heard about the fight? Oh my gosh, you should have seen it!”

“Apparently so” Lily replied, slight amused in spite of herself.

Dorcas began pouring hot chocolate from the flask she had just brought into some mugs on the bedside table. The girls helped themselves gratefully.

“It. Was. Crazy.” Dorcas declared, shaking her head. “Potter just stormed in, guns blazing, cracked Sirius right in the head…”

Lily smiled fondly at her three roomates as she drank her hot chocolate, wondering vaguely how many more versions of this story were going to be recounted tonight. The argument with James was still buzzing in the back of her mind, but she was slowly cheering up, listening to the girls chatter excitedly. Before long, talk turned to speculation about the boys’ respective relationship statuses (a matter often discussed in their dorm, much to Lily’s exasperation) and Lily started to lose interest.

“So you think they were fighting over a girl?” Dorcas asked Mary, with interest.

“It’s the only thing that makes sense to me” Mary nodded sagely. “Did you see the passion in his eyes? Definitely something to do with romance.”

“Unless Potter has been snogging Black’s _boyfriend_ I think it’s a bit unlikely” Lily said, getting up from Marlene’s bed and digging around in her suitcase under her own bed.

“Maybe he has” Marlene replied, making the others giggle. “Maybe asking you out all these years has just been for show. You’ve never shown any interest in him after all.”

“Oh thanks” Lily said indignantly, still rooting around under the bed. “Couldn’t possibly have been because he actually likes me?”

She finally found the bottle of mead that she had been looking for (a birthday present from Dorcas a few weeks ago) and turned around holding it up to the girls, raising her eyebrows.

“Hey, I recognise that” Dorcas grinned.

“ _Lily,_ you’re a prefect!” Mary said in a mock-disapproving tone.

“I’m not on duty” Lily replied dismissively, sitting back down on Marlene’s bed and pouring a generous measure into her empty mug. Marlene held out hers while Mary and Dorcas hastily finished their hot chocolate to empty their own mugs.

“Besides” Lily added. “It’s Friday night, so it’s not like we have class in the morning. And _I_ am of age. I am perfectly entitled to have a drink if I want.” She opted not to mention that in the muggle world the legal age for alcohol is eighteen. This _was_ wizarding alcohol, after all.

“Yeah but isn't there something a bit ethically sketchy about getting three minors drunk with you?” Marlene teased.

“Oh so, none for you then?” Lily replied, and Marlene made a noise of protest. Everyone laughed.

“Can we PLEASE talk about something other than those stupid boys though” Lily begged.

“Are you annoyed that James hasn’t asked you out this year?” Dorcas asked. Her tone was casual but she was giving Lily a significant look, and Mary and Marlene had fallen silent.

“What?!” Lily looked around at them all incredulously. “Of course not!”

“OK” Dorcas said, a little disbelievingly. “It’s just, he’s barely spoken to you all year and you seem to be getting more and more annoyed about it. You’re arguing with him while you’re out on patrol and then you’re offended when I say maybe he was never really interested in you…”

“I’m not annoyed” Lily lied, narrowing her eyes. “I’m just sick of hearing about him. He does my head in.”

“But he hasn’t been, this year. That’s the point” Dorcas said raising an eyebrow.

“He doesn’t need to speak to me to do my head in” Lily assured them. The three other girls did not look convinced.

“Sounds like he’s under your skin” Marlene chimed in suggestively.

“Fuck off, all of you” Lily said irritably. “I share my mead with you and this is the thanks I get?”

“Alright, alright” Dorcas said calmly. “We’ll leave it alone. But I don’t know _why_ you’re being so defensive.”

Lily scowled at her as Dorcas serenely took a sip of her drink. Honestly, she didn’t know herself why she was being so defensive. All she knew is that something wasn’t quite right. And she was going to get to the bottom of it.

“So, do you think Black _has_ a boyfriend?” Mary chimed in.

 

-

 

Lily eyed Remus suspiciously over the table at the prefect meeting the following day. Professor Flitwick was talking about arrangements over the Christmas holidays, but since Lily would be going home for Christmas she wasn’t really paying attention. Instead she was scrutinising Remus looking for any clues as to what had happened last night. She didn’t really know what she expected to learn from this visual inspection. Mary, Marlene and Dorcas had talked about the fight all night, regaling what they had seen and speculating on what had caused it and what would happen next. By all accounts Remus hadn’t really been THAT involved, so Lily wasn’t surprised that he had no obvious injuries. He _did_ look a bit put out though. Slightly more brooding than usual. Although it was hard to tell, Remus was ALWAYS a little bit brooding.

He caught Lily staring at him, and raised an eyebrow inquisitively at her. Lily felt herself blush a little, but there was really no point in pretending that she hadn’t been staring. ‘ _We need to talk_ ’ she mouthed at him. Remus simply looked even more confused.

For the rest of the meeting Remus kept shooting furtive looks at Lily, probably to see if she was still staring, which she was _trying_ not to. As soon as the meeting was over and everyone got up to leave, Lily walked over to Remus, who was looking around with the air of someone very much backed into a corner.

“Hi Remus” she said, smiling brightly, trying not to give away the fact that she was about to interrogate him.

“Hi” he replied stiffly, looking nervously over at the Slytherin prefects. Lily followed his gaze, but they were talking to each other, not paying Remus or Lily any attention.

“Everything OK?” she asked, slightly concerned by this odd behaviour.

“Yeah, fine” he said flatly. “Um, what’s up?”

“Can we take a walk?” she asked. Remus’s eyes darted to the Slytherins again and Lily looked around again, but they were starting to leave.

“Uh, yeah, OK” he said, running his fingers absent-mindedly over the big scar on the side of his face.

Lily smiled encouragingly and waited for him to put away the notes he had been taking during the meeting. He threw them into his bag, hauling it over his shoulder and gestured for her to lead the way.

Lily didn’t really have a destination in mind, and it was too cold to wander around outside, so she walked aimlessly down the corridor, Remus walking silently next to her. She was half hoping that he would break the silence, unsure how exactly she was going to ask him what she wanted to ask. He didn’t however, and just stared at the ground in front of them while they walked.

“So” Lily ventured after a while. “I heard you boys had quite the night last night…”

“You could say that” Remus sighed.

“Dare I ask what happened?” she said, looking sideways at him.

“I would have thought that the girls would fill you in” Remus replied, smirking a little.

“Oh they did” Lily grinned. “Believe me, you lot were the talk of the tower, ALL night.”

“Not for the first time, I’m sure” he was fully smirking now. Lily laughed.

“Yeah well. Don’t ask me to explain what they all find so fascinating about you lot. I think you’re a bunch of idiots, personally” she joked.

 “Hah, good to know” Remus smiled.

“So, what happened?” she asked seriously.

Remus squirmed a little at the question. He evidently didn’t want to give away the real story.

“James had a little pent-up anger that he needed to get out. Sirius didn’t take to kindly to being his punching bag” Remus shrugged.

“And you?” Lily probed. “I heard that you jumped in the middle of it.”

“Yeah” he replied sheepishly. “I guess I didn’t take too kindly to it either.”

“That’s not like you” she said, hoping he would offer an explanation. He frowned a little.

“You know, I’m not as ineffectual as everyone thinks” he sounded mildly offended. ”I _am_ capable of springing into action, occasionally.”

“I didn’t mean it like THAT” Lily insisted. “I just meant you usually don’t put yourself in the middle of Potter and Black’s drama.”

“I’m usually in the middle of it whether I like it or not” Remus countered. “Fat lot of good it did anyway. They still beat the shit out of each other.”

“I heard Sirius won” Lily said.

“There were no winners” Remus scowled, running his hand over his scar again.

“Well, sure” Lily conceded. “I heard that he really did a number on James though. Blood everywhere, people screaming for him to stop.”

“Who’ve you been talking to?” Remus scowled.

“Mary. Marlene. Dorcas. Literally the whole house at breakfast this morning” Lily shrugged. “People talk.”

“Hmmm” Remus continued to frown broodingly. “People should mind their own business.”

“Remus, what’s going on?” Lily asked, stopping walking and turning to face him. He looked taken aback by the directness of the question.

“What do you mean?” he asked, unconvincingly innocently.

“You know what I mean” Lily replied, dropping any semblance of reservation. “James hasn’t spoken to me in weeks, then he and I have this huge argument and an hour later he’s fighting with Sirius in the common room. And you’re suddenly all twitchy and weird about talking to me as well. Someone better tell me what’s going on.”

Remus looked very small as she stood facing him, hands on hips doing her best authoritative stare (the one that always made the first years hop to and do whatever she told them to). He was clearly struggling to think of what to say in response – she could practically see the cogs turning in his head.

“James is pissed off at Sirius because Sirius did something stupid” Remus said slowly, as though weighing his words carefully. “Has been for a while. It just sort of came to a head last night, that’s all.”

“And what does that have to do with me?” Lily asked, disbelievingly. “Or YOU, for that matter? Why did YOU get in the middle of the fight?”

“Honestly, I don’t know” Remus said shaking his head. “I saw James go for him and something just snapped. Before I knew it I had James in a chokehold.”

“In a chokehold?” Lily bit back a laugh, imagining this.

“I know” Remus replied, sheepish again. “It all got a bit out of hand.”

“I’ll say” Lily agreed. “But you still haven’t told me _why_.”

Remus hesitated for a moment, Lily fixed him with her no-nonsense stare again and he appeared to crumble under the pressure.

“Sirius is my boyfriend” he said very quickly, his cheeks flushing as he did so. Lily felt very wrong-footed by this sudden turn of events.

“I – what?”

“That’s why I was so defensive. This is the first time I’ve seen him get into a fight since we… started seeing each other. I didn’t like it...”

“You and _Sirius_?” Lily asked incredulously, entirely forgetting about everything else in the wake of this revelation.

“Yeah” Remus replied shyly.

“But…” a thousand questions swirled around Lily’s head. She didn’t even know that Remus liked boys. She didn’t even know that Sirius was capable of commitment. She had NO idea that the two of them would ever be interested in each other. What did they even DO together, other than picking up after Potter and planning stupid pranks?

Unfortunately, her mouth was not quite as quick as her brain, and all of this came out simply as: “ _why?”_

Remus stared back at her indignantly and Lily realised how rude what she had just said was.

“Sorry” she added quickly. “I didn’t mean – I’m just surprised. I didn’t know that you…”

“Yeah well” he shrugged. “I know you think he’s an arse. And well, to be honest he is a bit of an arse sometimes. But he’s… he’s good, you know? He’s better than a lot of people give him credit for. He’s done so much for me.”

Lily smiled at the look on his face as he talked about Sirius. He was obviously crazy about the boy, and it was quite sweet to see.

“Good looking, too” she smirked and Remus laughed.

“Fucking gorgeous is what I think you mean. And yeah, that certainly works in his favour.”

Lily grinned.

“He makes you happy?” she asked.

“Always has” Remus replied.

Lily smiled, feeling only mildly envious.

“I’m glad” she said.


	5. Domestics

James’s bad mood had continued all the way until the end of term, but he had apparently gotten all of the aggression out of his system and didn’t feel the need to instigate any more fights. Sirius had apologised again the next morning for beating the crap out of him in front of everyone like that, but James wasn’t really angry about it. He was the one who had started it after all.

Remus had been mortified over the way he had jumped in at the start of the fight, once they had all calmed down and realised what had actually happened. He had apologised whole-heartedly both to James and the seventh year he had pushed. Sirius thought the whole thing was hilarious and had spent the next couple of weeks teasing Remus relentlessly for jumping to Sirius’s defence like that. Remus denied that he had done any such thing, and tried to pretend that he had just been breaking up the fight. Yeah, right, like he’d EVER done that before.

James was now lying on his bed in his own room back home, absent-mindedly playing with a snitch, throwing it up into the air and snatching it back when it tried to fly away. He could feel Sirius’s eyes on him from across the room, but he was ignoring him. Sirius had been trying to get James to have a heart-to-heart with him ever since the fight, but James didn’t want to go over it all again. What else was there to say?

 “You’ll break it if you carry on like that” Sirius said warningly, after James had grabbed the snitch particularly forcefully when it nearly flew out of his reach.

“So?” James replied, fully aware of how childish he sounded.

“You want to punch me again?” Sirius offered, quite calmly. “No Moony here this time to defend my honour.”

“No” James replied quietly. He felt slightly ashamed of himself for the way he had been acting these past few weeks, and still couldn’t bring himself to look at Sirius.

“Well, stop pouting and talk to me then” Sirius said firmly, walking over to James’s bed and snatching the snitch out of the air. “What’s up?”

James sat up, opening his mouth to argue, but retreated under Sirius’s unusually stern gaze. He instead leaned back against the wall moodily.

“You know what’s up” he said quietly.

“I don’t know WHY though” Sirius said, sitting down next to him and offering the snitch back to him. “I mean, I know you liked her, but it’s not like you were going out or anything. She barely even spoke to you.”

“Wouldn’t you be a bit pissed off if you weren’t allowed to speak to Remus ever again?” James replied.

“Well that’s not the same though, is it?” Sirius countered. “We were best mates even before we started seeing each other. And anyway, me and Moons… that’s just different...”

“How is it different?” James frowned.

Sirius shrugged. He looked distinctly uncomfortable.

“Because. It’s not just like… I don’t just fancy him… I…” he was starting to go red. James looked at him with great interest.

“I love him” Sirius said abruptly, and then looked defiantly at James, as though daring him to say anything negative about it.

James was slightly taken aback by the ferocity of this declaration, but he took it in his stride. It wasn’t really news after all, Moony and Padfoot had been crazy about each other for years. He wasn’t entirely sure why Sirius thought this was a good counter-argument though.

“You think I don’t love her?” James asked him, after a pause.

“Do you?” Sirius asked, looking surprised.

James looked incredulously at him and Sirius laughed.

“I’m not joking Sirius” James said irritably.

“I know” Sirius replied. “THAT’S what’s funny.”

James scowled at him and Sirius grinned back.

“You can’t be in love. You’re a prat” Sirius said, matter-of-factly. “You’re not capable of that depth of emotion. Besides, you hardly know her.”

“I know her better than you think” James muttered, deciding to let the rest of that statement go for the sake of not getting into another fight. Sirius raised an eyebrow.

“Been stalking her?”

“No” James was blushing now and Sirius looked delighted.

“Have you?!”

“No!”

“You HAVE, you bloody pervert!”

“I’ve not been _stalking_ anyone!” James insisted. “I just… you know, I _notice_ things about her.”

“I _bet_ you do” Sirius grinned, and James had to martial all of his self control not to smack him.

“Not like that!” James retorted, very much regretting ever having entered into this conversation. “I mean stuff about _who_ she is. Like, did you know she’s good at spellwork but not so much at theory? Because she’s an intuitive sort of person. That’s why she’s so good at Potions. She just _gets_ it.”

“OK...” Sirius replied, looking sceptical. James was getting increasingly frustrated with him.

“And did you know she has a sister she doesn’t really get on with? She loves her family but they don’t really understand the whole magic thing, being muggles and all” James went on. Sirius said nothing, but continued to look unimpressed.

“She doesn’t pick fights but she won’t let anyone walk over her or tell her what to do. She’s got a bit of a mischievous side and she’s not as into rules as most people think, she just pretends so people will respect her as a prefect. She’s so kind, she never judges anyone or gives anyone a hard time. She’s just... wonderful!” James was vaguely aware of the volume of his voice increasing, but he was finding it hard to stop now that he’d started. He felt like he’d been holding all of this in for a very long time.

“She’s smart and brave and funny and beautiful and I’ve been in love with her ever since I really started noticing girls and I’ve never really even wanted anyone else!”

James took a deep breath, a little surprised by his own outburst. Sirius looked equally surprised.

“Fuck… OK…” Sirius replied, evidently unsure how to respond. “I guess you DO love her then…”

There was awkward pause where they both stared at each other.

“Right” Sirius clapped his hands together, suddenly business-like. “So what are we going to do about it then?”

“WE are not doing anything” James scowled. “You’ve done enough, thanks.”

“Oh don’t be like that” Sirius said dismissively. “We need a plan. You think we should floo Moony? He is the brains of the outfit after all.”

James snorted.

“You can’t go one bloody day without him, can you?”

“Prongs, you of all people should understand my plight. We’re in the same boat after all – forced to be separated from our one true love” Sirius put a hand to his forehead and pretended to faint onto James’s lap. James rolled his eyes.

“And I CAN go one day without him, thank you very much, but I’d just prefer not to. No offence to you Jamie but you’re not as hot as he is.” Sirius winked at James, who stared at him, unimpressed. “Anyway” Sirius added, “he is the smartest person we know. If we’re going to be scheming it will save us a lot of time just to bring him in now.”

“Oh bloody hell, fine” James replied, trying to sound annoyed but supressing a smile. “But if Moony’s coming over we’re inviting Wormtail as well.”

 

-

 

The four boys sat in a semi circle around the fire in James’s front room, toasting marshmallows on sticks and discussing the problem with Snape. James felt his bad mood start to lessen slightly for the first time in ages as he looked around at them all fondly. Remus was methodically rotating his stick to get an even toasting on his marshmallow, while Peter was haphazardly shoving three marshmallows at a time onto his. Sirius had burnt his last marshmallow because he wasn’t paying attention, but stubbornly ate it anyway, insisting he preferred them ‘a bit charred’.

“I _still_ don’t understand why you don’t just tell Evans what Snape said” Peter offered, shaking his head. “You KNOW she won’t stand for that shit. Problem solved.”

“Why don’t we tell on him to McGonagall while we’re at it?” Sirius replied sarcastically. “Or better yet, why don’t we tell our mothers? Big bad Snape is bullying us, please help us mummy…”

“Alright, alright…” Peter scowled. “I get it.”

“Well I think he has a point” Remus said calmly, shooting Peter a sympathetic look. “We’re talking about Lily as if she’s some sort of pawn in a game we’re playing. She’s a human being you know, I think she deserves to know about the whole situation. It does involve her after all.”

“I KNOW she’s a human being Moony” James retorted, flaring up. “I don’t appreciate-“

“Prongs, calm down” Sirius put a hand out to James’s chest, which made him realise he had been leaning forward rather aggressively. He sat back and accepted the bag of marshmallows that Peter was tentatively holding out to him, sighing resignedly.

“I didn’t mean to insinuate that you don’t know that” Remus said placidly. “I just meant that maybe we should involve her in the discussion. We don’t necessarily have to tell her all of the specifics. Because she already knows something is up.”

“No” James said firmly. “I’m not making this into _her_ problem. We got ourselves into this and we’re going to get ourselves out of it.”

“Technically _I_ got us into this” Sirius muttered, looking uncharacteristically bashful. Remus shot him a very loving look that made a huge flare of jealousy and resentment shoot through James. He bit back the cutting remark he wanted to make to the pair of them and looked back to Sirius who was staring broodingly into the fire. The fire reflected in his grey eyes, partially obscured by his long, dark fringe made quite a dramatic sight. James was almost tempted to laugh at the melodrama of it all.

“I think six years of relentless bullying also contributed to this mess” James said, elbowing Sirius gently, who smiled grimly. “You remember last year when I used levicorpus on him out by the lake in front of everyone? Those grey underpants?”

“Yeah but a week before that he hexed you in the great hall for no reason. Made your face sprout all those tentacles” Peter chimed in defensively.

“Yeah but that was probably in retaliation for the tripping jinx in Potions class” Sirius countered.

“Oh yeah” James smiled at the memory. “Spilled toad oil all over himself...”

“Not that you could tell” Sirius muttered. James sniggered.

“I think we can all agree it’s been reciprocal” Remus pronounced, sliding his perfectly toasted marshmallow off the stick serenely. “There have been casualties on both sides. There’s no point blaming anyone.”

James stifled another laugh at Remus presiding over all of them with his sage words of wisdom, as if this were some sort of congress, and not just the four of them sat in James’s living room.

“So you think there’s no chance of reasoning with Snape then?” James asked Remus, already knowing the answer.

“No, he’s not going to be reasonable with any of us. But with _Lily_ maybe…”

“I told you, I’m NOT involving her in this” James insisted. Remus frowned into the fire, clearly trying to think of a work-around. James wished him luck, he’d been racking his own brains for months with no results. As far as he could tell they were stuck in an un-winnable situation. The most he could do was hope that Lily would still be single when they left school and that he’d find a way to make contact with her again.

“Well if we can’t neutralise Snape then we need to neutralise the threat, somehow” Remus said finally. James frowned.

“What do you mean?” he asked warily.

“I mean, we need to find a way of it not mattering if Snape DOES spill the secret. Take away his leverage.”

“And how do we do that?” Sirius asked sharply, frowning at Remus. “Because if you’re thinking about throwing yourself under the bus then forget about it!”

“Maybe if we went to Dumbledore – I mean, we don’t tell him what _happened_ , obviously, but we tell him that Snape _knows_ and is threatening-“

“Forget it, Remus!” Sirius cut across him looking furiously at him. Remus looked rather taken aback.

“Dumbledore could reason with the school board” he argued.

“NO. NO. NO. We are not risking your place at Hogwarts” Sirius said stubbornly. Remus opened his mouth to argue some more and Sirius cut across him again.

“It ISN’T happening, so don’t even go there” he said loudly, looking sternly at Remus, who was looking uncharacteristically defiant.

“Does anyone have a better idea?!” he demanded angrily. “Because it seems to me like you’re all paying the price for MY problem.”

Sirius looked livid.

“It's ALL of our fucking problem Moony!” he retorted. “Don’t you do that, don’t you fucking…”

“WHAT?” Remus shouted. “DON’T I _WHAT_ , SIRIUS?”

"God fucking DAMN it Moony!" Sirius cried, wringing his hands. James could tell from how frustrated he sounded that this was a recurring argument between them. "Why do you always do this? Why do you push EVERYONE away?"

"Why can't you ever just LEAVE IT ALONE?" Remus replied angrily.

At that point James’s mother poked her head around the door, looking slightly wary.

“Everything OK in here, boys?” she asked, eyeing them suspiciously. James looked around at Peter, who was resolutely staring at his marshmallow, Remus, who was scowling at Sirius, and Sirius, who had hold of Remus’s wrist and was frozen in the action of some sort of dramatic proclamation.

“We’re fine, Mrs Potter” Remus said, in an unnervingly rapid shift to a neutral expression and an innocent tone. “Sorry if we’re making too much noise”

“Oh no, it’s fine dear” she smiled. “Just as long as you’re not making trouble.”

She addressed that last comment to James, who replied in perfect unison with Sirius.

“We're not.”

She smiled.

“Hmmm, OK” she said in a disbelieving tone, but backed out of the room and left them to it.

"Moony, he's right” James said as soon as his mother was out of earshot, before the two of them could start arguing again. “We're in this together, whether you like it or not."

Remus looked like he wanted to argue, but fortunately Peter chimed in.

"I agree. So that's three against one. Sorry mate."

Remus looked around at all three of them and seemed to realise there was no point in arguing further so he stared moodily into the fire instead, his head resting on his hands. James was stricken by how Sirius-like this gesture was and looked to his best mate, who was watching Remus was a troubled look on his face. The type often worn by Remus himself. The two of them really were rubbing off on each other. James gave his head a shake and tried to push that rather unnerving thought to the back of his mind.

"Look guys, I appreciate you trying to help, but I just can't see any way out of this" James sighed. "We're not telling Lily about the deal and we're NOT telling Dumbledore about Snape."

"I think Remus is on to something" Peter said thoughtfully. "About neutralizing the threat. Not by telling anyone else or anything. But maybe there's another way we could make it not matter if he told people. Like maybe we could do something so that no-one would believe him."

A silence followed while they all thought about that. James smiled as he thought that Sirius had been right to call Moony in on this, he was the best problem solver of the four of them. But Peter was surprising good at thinking of loopholes too. Half of James and Sirius's prank ideas would never get off the ground without the other two. 

"Well, that's progress isn't it?" Sirius said clapping his hands together. His tone was jovial, but James knew him well enough to be able to tell he was still brooding on the argument with Remus. 

"Yeah, progress" James agreed, giving Sirius a reassuring smile.

 

-

 

James heard Sirius get up and leave the bedroom a little while after Peter started snoring. He heard the back door creak open downstairs and sat up, looking over to Remus who was curled up in a sleeping bag on the thick rug on the floor. He could see that Remus was awake because his pre-full-moon eyes were slightly glowing in the darkness.

"You gonna go after him?" James asked quietly.

Remus sighed deeply and put an arm over his eyes (rather dramatically in James's opinion. He had DEFINITELY spent too much time with Sirius).

"I don't want to argue anymore" Remus replied flatly.

"Alright" James said calmly, sliding quietly out of bed. 

Remus didn't say anything as James stepped over him and left the room, but James thought he heard him sigh again as he closed the door behind him. When he got downstairs he grabbed a cloak at random from the hooks by the front door and stepped into his trainers, not bothering to lace them up. He crept out the back door. Sirius was leaning against the fence at the far end of the garden smoking a cigarette and shivering under his leather jacket which he had carelessly slung over his shoulders.

James walked over to join him but said nothing, merely holding out his hand for a cigarette. Sirius wordlessly passed him the packet and James took one out, glancing surreptitiously back at the house, even though his parents bedroom window faced out the other side. He put the cigarette in his mouth and Sirius lit it for him with his wand, looking mildly amused.

"Looking fabulous, love" Sirius smiled.

"You wha- oh..." James looked down and realised he was wearing his mother's flowery cloak. Sirius sniggered quietly.

"I think daisies suit me" James said defiantly, taking a deep puff on his cigarette and looking playfully at Sirius, who grinned.

"Really brings out your eyes" Sirius replied, leaning back against the fence again. 

James leaned next to him and both of them looked back at the house in silence. James glanced at Sirius and saw him looking up towards James's bedroom window. James nudged Sirius gently in the ribs but didn't say anything. He wasn't going to make Sirius talk if he didn't want to. Talking didn’t always make you feel better about things. Sometimes you just needed someone to be there. James had caught on to that a long time ago, and it was basically the foundation of their entire friendship. 

"Sorry" Sirius said quietly after a while.

"For what?" James asked, surprised.

"For having a bloody domestic when we're supposed to be maraudering."

James laughed.

"After all the shit you've put me through over the last six years, THIS is the thing you apologise for?" He asked Sirius incredulously. Sirius looked a mixture of amused and offended.

"All the shit I put you through, pfft, have you heard yourself? Like you're not ten times worse..." Sirius said in his most aloof tone, casually flicking his cigarette end over the fence and shaking his fringe out of his eyes. James laughed again at how he couldn't let the cool-guy facade drop even when no-one but James was looking. 

"Have as many domestics as you want" James said calmly, leisurely puffing on his own cigarette. "You've spent the last three months listening to me whinge about Lily."

"I don't WANT to fight with him" Sirius muttered, and James took the cigarette out of his mouth, giving Sirius his full attention. 

"I just..." Sirius sighed resignedly. "I just wish I could get through to him, you know? Why can't he see that he deserves to have people care about him?"

James raised an eyebrow and stared at Sirius until he looked up at him.

"What?" He asked defensively and James laughed.

"You!" James said, lightly punching Sirius in the arm. "That's exactly what I was saying to you for the first I-don't-even-know-how-many years we knew each other."

"Come on, I was never as bad as Moony" Sirius protested.

"Well" James mused, throwing his cigarette butt in roughly the same direction that Sirius had. "You're not a werewolf are you?"

“No, just the disgraced heir of a batshit crazy pureblood family" Sirius said, starting to laugh. 

"Don't forget the flaming homo bit" James grinned, and Sirius laughed even harder. 

"Good god Prongs, why the hell do you hang around with us?" Sirius asked, still laughing.

"I'm a good Samaritan like that" James grinned.

The two of them laughed for a long time. James was wiping tears from his eyes and Sirius was coughing his lungs up by the time they calmed down. James thumped him on the back.

"You need to stop smoking mate" James smirked, shaking his head.

"I'm young, my lungs can take it" Sirius replied, his voice hoarse. 

"I don't think that's how it works" James told him.

Sirius grinned mischievously and slid the packet back out of his pocket. 

"You won't be wanting anothet then?" He teased, as he lit one and took a long inhale.

"I'm a hypocrite Sirius, that fact is well documented" James replied, snatching the packet out of his hand and taking one. 

Sirius grinned at him, but his smile faltered as he looked back up at the house. James followed his gaze and saw the curtains on his bedroom window moving, as though someone had just looked out. He looked back to Sirius, who was now looking at the ground, a hardened expression on his face.

"We'll get through to him eventually Pads" James said quietly.

Sirius said nothing, taking long drags of his cigarette and looking at the ground. James could practically feel the hurt radiating from him. James grabbed Sirius by the neck and pulled him firmly into a hug. Sirius spluttered in protest, holding his cigarette away from their bodies so as not to burn either of them, but he didn't try to pull away. The gesture was a familiar one. James used to do this to Sirius all the time when they were younger and Sirius used to insist he 'wasn't a hugger' (translation - his cruel mother had taught him that hugs were for the weak, and that Sirius didn't deserve them anyway). He had subsequently seen Sirius use the same manoeuvre on an irritable pre or post moon Remus, holding him in an almost-headlock until he stopped struggling and just accepted the affection. 

"You’ll be alright” James said quietly.

"Yeah, probably..." Sirius's voice was muffled. James released him and he fluffed his hair with one hand, lifting his cigarette back up to his mouth with the other. James resisted the urge to roll his eyes. 


	6. Revelations

Lily arrived back at school after the Christmas holidays quite late. Her parents had insisted that she wait for Petunia to come home from shopping so she could say goodbye before she flooed back to Hogsmeade, but Petunia had taken her time - probably deliberately, Lily thought moodily. Her sister’s disdain towards her seemed to worsen with every passing year and the two of them barely even spoke to each other anymore.

Lily had arrived right in the middle of dinner, and had opted to take her bag and the winter coat she was wearing upstairs rather than going straight to the great hall, figuring that she would go back out later and get something from the kitchens. Maybe even take some hot chocolate back for the girls.

“Hey, Lily!” someone called to her from down the corridor. Lily turned around and saw Remus jogging towards her.

“Hi Remus” she greeted him, stopping so that he could catch up with her.

“There’s a prefect meeting tomorrow” he told her as he approached. “McGonagall asked me to let you know.”

“Oh, OK” Lily replied. “After classes?”

“Yeah, in Slughorn’s classroom.”

“OK. Thanks.” Lily started walking again, expecting Remus to walk with her, but she turned around slightly confused when he didn’t.

“Um, I’m headed up to the common room. You coming?” she asked. He looked around the deserted corridor nervously.

“Uh, no, I have to... library. I have to go to the library.”

Lily raised an eyebrow.

“Come on Remus, you’re a better liar than that” she said, eyeing him suspiciously.

He hesitated.

“I don’t like lying to you” he said quietly.

“So tell me the truth.”

He hesitated again. Lily felt a flare of anger. Were they really STILL playing this stupid game? She had almost forgotten about the whole thing over Christmas, the thought driven from her mind in light of dealing with Petunia and her increasingly estranged parents. But now all the memories of James treating her like she had dragonpox and Remus nervously trying to get out of any conversation with her came flooding back and she realised how hurt she still was by the whole thing.

“Fine, don’t then” she scowled and walked away. As she reached the staircase at the end of the corridor she spotted Severus at the top of it where he was loitering, apparently spying on her and Remus’s conversation. Her scowl deepened and she spared him a contemptuous look as she passed but said nothing.

Fucking boys, she thought irritably as she stalked down the corridor. Fucking Severus and his fucking bigoted prejudices. Fucking Remus and whatever secrets he was keeping from her. Fucking Potter refusing to even look her way anymore.

She reached the portrait hole and it suddenly dawned on her that she didn’t know the new password. She tried the old one, but of course it had been changed over the holidays. She sighed in exasperation and looked around, hoping to see someone else approaching, but the place was deserted, since most people were probably still at dinner.

“Come on” she implored the fat lady. “You _know_ me, can’t you just let me in?”

The fat lady shook her head importantly.

“Rules are rules. You need to ask your house prefects for the new password” she replied.

“I _am_ the house prefect!” she argued. The fat lady merely gave her an unimpressed look.

“Urgh!” Lily cried in annoyance, wheeling round. This day just kept getting better and better. And of course she had no idea where Remus had gone. She was going to have to traipse all the way back down to the great hall and try and find someone.

“Fucks sake…” she muttered under her breath as she stormed back the way she had come. She slowed down however when she reached the staircase on which she had passed Severus a moment ago. She could hear two people arguing and she approached carefully, reaching for her wand, wondering whether she was going to have to break up a scrap. As she got closer however she froze in surprise when she realised that the two people arguing were Remus and Severus. She knew she shouldn’t be eavesdropping, and she really ought to go and interrupt the two of them before they started hexing each other. But then she heard her name, and she craned her neck, listening hard to their conversation.

“I didn’t ask for this!” Remus was saying, desperately. “I didn’t _want_ to be a fucking prefect, they just made me one. So I _have_ to go to the meetings and do the patrols and all that shit. What do you want me to DO, Severus?”

“I’ve told you what I want you to do” Severus snarled, and Lily was taken aback by the harshness of his tone. “Stay AWAY from her.”

“I _can’t_ , that’s what I’m telling you! We HAVE to do these things together, because we’re both prefects.”

“So that’s why you’re chasing her down the corridors is it?”

“Yes! I had to tell her there’s a meeting tomorrow, McGonagall asked me to!”

“A likely story…”

“I don’t know what to tell you Severus, it’s true. What exactly is it that you think I’m trying to do here?”

“You and your _friends_ are always trying to worm your way in on her!”

“By ‘my friends’ I take it you mean James? Look, he-“

“You listen to me-“

Lily was shocked again by Severus’s voice. He sounded so angry. Why on earth should he be so angry with Remus? She couldn’t ever imagine anyone talking to Remus like that. But what shocked her even more was the thud and the grunt she heard following these words, that sounded as though Severus had pushed him up against the wall. Lily instinctively took her wand out of her pocket and held it up in front of her, listening intently.

“I _know_ what you are, don’t you forget that. And I’ve told you I don’t want you near her. I can make things VERY difficult for you, you know that don’t you?”

“Severus – don’t!”

Lily’s whole body tensed. Remus sounded panicked. There were scuffling sounds, as though there was some sort of struggle going on.

“DON’T!” Remus sounded upset, but there was a hint of anger in his voice. A warning, almost.

“Why don’t you want me to see?” Severus sounded amused. As though he was mocking him. “I just want to match the number to the beast. After all, I’ve seen your _true_ form, _wolf”_ he hissed menacingly. Lily gasped, she took a step down the stairs to put a stop to this but froze again when she heard Remus yell.

“GET FUCKED!” Now he sounded properly angry. Lily had never heard him yell like that before. There was another thud and Severus roared in anger. Severus yelled something incomprehensible and there was a huge crash that sounded like a vase shattering (or perhaps a chandelier breaking). Lily came to her senses and ran down the stairs.

“THAT’S ENOUGH!” she shouted, wand held aloft as she reached the bottom and saw the mess in front of her.

The crash had indeed been a large ornate vase that was on display in the corridor, which was now in several pieces on the floor with a burn mark in the middle where it had clearly been hit with a spell of some sort. Severus had a scrape on his arm and was looking distinctly dishevelled, as though he had fallen over. Remus was standing against the wall, hastily rolling down his sleeve, taking great care to make sure it covered his whole forearm. Lily looked suspiciously between the pair of them who were both eyeing her warily, pointing her wand at each of them in turn.

“One of you better start talking” she said threateningly. They both just looked at her.

“Fine!” she snapped. “I’ll talk then, shall I?” She advanced towards Severus, who looked terrified.

“You!” she brandished her wand sharply at him and in her anger a few red sparks flew out of the end. Severus glanced worriedly at it. “How _dare_ you tell anyone they aren’t allowed to speak to me? You do NOT own me, Severus. We’re not even friends anymore! And guess what? Remus IS my friend, and I can’t _believe_ I just caught you speaking to him like that! You’re lucky I don’t curse you into next week! In fact, the only reason I’m NOT doing that right now is because I need you to hear what I’m saying to you. STAY OUT OF MY LIFE!”

Lily stood towering over him, breathing heavily, still holding her wand in an attack position. Severus looked pleadingly at her but didn’t seem to have anything to say in response.

“Now FUCK OFF” she barked at him, making him flinch. “And don’t think I won’t be reporting this!” she shouted after him as he bolted away from them.

Lily stood where she was, staring at the end of the corridor where he had disappeared, trying to process what had just happened. Remus started to ask if she was OK and she instinctively turned rather aggressively towards him, wand raised again.

“And YOU!” she said accusingly, causing Remus to shrink back into the wall slightly. “I can’t believe you would just GO ALONG with that? What, you were just never going to speak to me again? Just because that little shit said so?!”

“I’m sorry” Remus whispered, so quiet that she almost didn’t hear. The defeat in his voice was clear and Lily felt herself soften as she lowered her wand, stepping towards him. To her great surprise, as she approached him she saw a single tear run down his cheek. Her anger lifted entirely and she pulled him firmly into a hug.

“ _Remus_ …” she said consolingly.

“I’m alright, I’m alright” he muttered dismissively, squirming away. She let him go but she examined him closely. He wasn’t crying properly, but Lily didn’t think she had ever seen anyone look less alright. He was still nervously fiddling with his sleeve.

“What did he do to you?” she asked warily.

“Nothing” he said clearly agitated, not looking at her. “I’m fine.”

“Remus, _please_?” she asked gently. “Show me. What did he do to your arm?”

“He didn’t do anything. I’m fine, I’m not hurt” Remus insisted, finally meeting her gaze. There was something distinctly panicked in his eyes, though, and Lily looked back at him with concern.

“He… he didn’t do anything _to_ me” Remus said after a pause, with the air of someone admitting something shameful. “He… lifted a charm, that I usually have… there…”

Lily frowned.

“What do you mean? What sort of charm?”

Remus sighed deeply and dropped his gaze to the floor again.

“A concealment charm” he muttered.

“For a scar?” Lily asked, wondering if maybe this is where the _bite mark_ was. Remus shook his head. Lily was bewildered, but he was obviously sensitive about it so she decided to let it drop.

“OK…”

There was an awkward pause.

“Come on” she said gently. “Let’s go back up to the tower. You know the new password, I assume?”

“It wasn’t just because he said so” Remus said suddenly, looking at her with a hardened look in his eye.

“What?” Lily asked, confused by the abrupt change of topic.

“It wasn’t just because he said so. Why I was avoiding you. It’s because… you probably ARE better off. Not having me around you…”

“Remus!” Lily replied sternly, hardly able to believe what she was hearing. “How can you even say that?”

He merely shrugged and looked slightly ashamed of himself. Lily frowned at him.

“You stop that, right now” she told him. “You are a wonderful person, Remus-“

“I’m a _werewolf_ ” he hissed, interrupting her.

“So?” Lily demanded defiantly.

Remus ran a hand roughly over the scar on his face in frustration.

“You sound like James and Sirius” he scowled. “always trying to downplay it. Why do you do that? Do you think you’re making things better? Because you’re not, you know, you’re making it worse.”

“I’m not downplaying anything Remus” Lily argued. “I’m telling you that I don’t care!”

“You ARE!” Remus looked angry now. “You all act like it’s no big deal, but it IS. You guys don’t care, and that’s... I mean, I never dreamed I could be so lucky. But other people... they care, OK? They _really_ care. You heard Snape just now. Other people think I should be _put down_. And they’ll think you should too, just for associating with me.”

“Remus...” Lily said, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder, but he shrugged it off.

“And you say you don’t care, and maybe you mean that now, but you _will_ care when death eaters come knocking at your door. And _I_ care, OK? _I care_ about that.”

“Remus!” Lily said loudly, placing a firmer hand on his shoulder forcing him to look at her. “Death eaters are going to be knocking on my door anyway. We’re in the same boat, you and me.”

He shook his head sadly.

“That’s nice of you to say, but we're not” he muttered darkly. Lily opened her mouth to argue but Remus held up a hand to stop her. He took a furtive look around them before rolling up the sleeve on his right arm, showing a series of numbers and runes written on his inner forearm. Lily thought for a minute that Severus must have written something there earlier, and that’s what he had been trying to hide. But as she looked closer she saw the slightly blurred edges of the print and realised that it had been tattooed into his skin.

“ _Remus..._ ” Lily said fearfully. “What is this?”

“Wolf 687” he said flatly. “That what I am to the government.”

“ _My God…”_ she whispered, letting the full horror of that sink in. The most disturbing thing about it was how faded the ink was. As though he’d had it for a very long time. Lily felt sick, imagining Remus as a little boy being hauled off to the ministry to be _branded._ It was sick. Inhumane.

“That’s what Snape was trying to make me show him” Remus told her.

Lily tore her eyes away from the mark and looked wide eyed at him.

“But _why_?” she asked, quietly. Remus did a horrible, hollow laugh.

“To humiliate me” he shrugged, rolling his sleeve back down. “To put me in my place. To show me that I’m nothing more than an animal. Show me why I shouldn’t be allowed near people like you.”

Lily gaped at him, unable to find the words to say how awful that was.

“Still think it’s no big deal?” he asked, harshly. “Still think I’m a _wonderful person_? Don’t you get it? I’m a _monster_. Snape knows the score, at least he can say it to my fa-“

Lily slapped him across the face in desperation to shut him up. It worked, he froze on the spot, looking shocked.

“Don’t you EVER talk about yourself like that again, do you HEAR me?!” she cried angrily. “I WON’T have it Remus, I MEAN it. Snape may go around saying all that shit but I don’t EVER want to hear it from you! Do you understand?!”

Remus nodded slowly, holding one hand over the side of his face where she had slapped him, still looking dumbstruck.

“Now, I AM your friend, whether you like it or not” she told him firmly. “Just try and get rid of me. See what happens.”

Remus nodded again, not looking at all convinced but apparently not having a counter-argument. Lily supposed that would have to do, for now.

“Now, come on” she said, still using her authoritative voice. “I need someone to let me into the common room.”

 

-

 

Lily walked down to kitchens alone later that night. Marlene had offered to accompany her, but Lily had politely declined. Her head was still spinning from earlier and she needed some space to think about it. She wished there was something, _anything_ she could do to show Remus that he wasn’t the monster that some people thought he was. She couldn’t get the image of that tattoo on his forearm out of her mind. She thought about how she vaguely felt like the whole world was against her sometimes, because she was muggleborn. She thought about how Remus must feel a million times worse than that _all the time._

She thought about Severus calling him ‘wolf’. About the clear disgust in his voice. About him trying to reveal Remus’s tattoo, just to shame him. She hadn’t thought it was even possible for Snape to sink any lower in her estimation, but she had been wrong. The boy was scum. He was a hateful, evil bastard. She thought about how James Potter had tried to tell her as much for five whole years and she hadn’t believed him.

She thought about Remus telling her she sounded like James, when she had said ‘so?’ She thought about how James had hexed Bellatrix Black just before Christmas for making some crack about Sirius getting kicked out by his parents. She thought about James punching that Hufflepuff in the face in third year for calling Sirius a fag. She thought about James hexing Mulciber last week for calling Mary a mudblood. She had no trouble whatsoever believing that James would react just as she had if Remus ever called himself a monster in front of him. She knew that James wouldn’t hear of _anyone_ speaking about his friend like that. She knew that he would defend Remus to the ends if the earth, if necessary. Like he would for any of his friends. Like he would for anyone he cared about. Like he had for _her_ , last year, out by the lake, when Severus had called her a mudblood.

She thought about James taking her by surprise and genuinely complimenting her spellwork in Charms last year, without trying to show off or impress her. It was one of the few interactions they had had where she hadn’t wanted to strangle him. It had been really nice, and Lily was actually beginning to consider the possibility that he might be growing up. That is until later that evening when he and Sirius had dumped slime over the whole of the Gryffindor common room.

She thought about that one time last year when he had taken the fall after the two of them had been caught out of bed. She had been sneaking into the library to do some covert research on werewolves, desperate to disprove Severus’s theory about Remus. God knows what James had been doing roaming the castle after dark by himself. They had run into each other in the corridor and after a whispered argument in which she had told him off for being out of bed and he had called her a hypocrite, James had distracted Filch so Lily could get away without being caught. He had gotten detention for it, but had never breathed a word to anyone.

She thought about how in Valentine’s day of fourth year James had given her a single rose in front of the whole house at breakfast and she had unceremoniously told him to sod off. He hadn’t been remotely discouraged and had responded arrogantly that she would eventually change her mind. Later, he had privately told her quite sincerely that he would wait for her for as long as it took.

She thought sadly about how that hadn’t been true. Apparently he had gotten tired of waiting.

She thought about that stupid way he ruffled his hair up so it looked all windswept. She would rather die than admit it to anyone, bit it did rather suit him. DAMN IT why did he have to be so handsome? This whole thing would have been so much easier if he wasn’t so handsome. It was infuriating really. She thought about his broad smile, that was like sunshine. The way he always seemed to find something to smile about. The way his smile was infectious and made you feel better just by looking at it. She thought about his warm, hazel brown eyes that had always been so full of awe when he looked at her. She realised that she liked those eyes, rather a lot. She realised that the main reason she was so hurt by whatever had made him stop looking at her that way was because of just how much she liked those eyes.

Lily stopped dead in the middle of the corridor, staring wide eyed ahead of her but not really seeing anything at all. Because she suddenly realised that she had been lying to Dorcas when she said she wasn’t upset about him not asking her out anymore. She had been lying to herself about that one too. She wasn’t exactly sure how or when this had happened, but somehow she had stopped hating him. Maybe she never really had _hated_ him as such, but she had never _liked_ him before. Not like this. DEFINITELY not like this.

It hit her like a ton of bricks when she finally realised that maybe she was kind of sort of just a little bit infatuated with James stupid fucking Potter.

And not a second later she realised with a horrible, stomach churning lurch, that apparently she had taken just too long to finally see how wonderful he was.


	7. Mudblood

Regulus Black’s entire life seemed to consist of him being stuck between a rock and a hard place. What was one to do, with slightly mad parents and a wayward brother?

Oh yes, Regulus knew that his parents were mad. He knew that everyone else genuinely thought he held the same beliefs as them. Well, that was sort of the point, wasn’t it? Keeping up appearances and all that. Regulus wasn’t even entirely convinced that his parents actually believed half the things that came out of their own mouths. But it wouldn’t do to be _controversial._ No, that sort of thing could bring about a great deal of trouble. The lamentable situation with his brother certainly proved that.

_Brother._

Of course, Regulus wasn’t supposed to refer to Sirius as his brother anymore. For all intents and purposes Sirius was not part of the equation anymore. He was nothing more than a cautionary tale. Still, Regulus privately had a hard time letting go of the idea of having a brother. It wasn’t even so much that he particularly _liked_ the man – Sirius had always been Difficult. Questioning everything, as though he didn’t understand the way things were or his place in it all. He understood well enough, he just wanted to challenge it. As though he could possibly change anything. Defiant in the face of discipline, impossible in the face of reason. Refusing, even now, to see the bigger picture. Sirius Black had been a lost cause from the very beginning.

And yet...

Regulus had a secret. A secret that he would undoubtedly take to the grave, because no good could possibly come from ever voicing it. A secret buried deep down, very rarely given any conscious thought. He had done his very best to quash it, because it would spell an awful lot of trouble for him if it ever saw the light of day. But it persisted. It remained, rooted in his subconscious. Ever present and impossible to banish completely.

Regulus knew that Sirius was right.

You see? Stuck. It simply wouldn’t do to have this thought in his head, because Regulus was on a path. It wasn’t a path of his own choosing, but Regulus had never devoted much energy into resenting that fact, because there was nothing to be done about the situation. The path was laid in front of him, just as it had once been laid in front of Sirius. But unlike Sirius, there truly was no way out for Regulus.

Sirius’s methods in removing himself from said path left a bad taste in Regulus’s mouth, but they were undeniably effective. He had resisted from the very beginning – earned his first scars at Mother's hand on Regulus’s first day of primary school. For Regulus, the mere threat of this punishment was incentive enough to do as she said. But Sirius was entirely undeterred. Regulus should have known there and then that he would one day become the sole heir to the house of Black. But there had still been hope.

Then the boy had gone and gotten himself sorted into Gryffindor. That was a stroke of genius really, whether intentional or not. The whole family had known at that point where this was going to end up. It was merely a question of when. Mother had been the one to hold out hope for the longest. She had tried to knock some sense into him. To make him understand. But Sirius was apparently immune to her methods. Regulus supposed that if they didn’t work on him as a child, there was little hope of them having any effect on him as a young man. Sirius had found an ally in the Potter boy, so there really was no reason anymore for him to be loyal to his family.

It was almost impressive, how easy Sirius had made it for himself to leave his old life behind. He had made it clear by adolescence that he was cut from a different cloth. He had sought out others who would take him in, in the inevitable event of his disinheritance. And the final nail in the coffin was how he had shattered their parents hope for their eldest son to carry the family name with any sort of dignity. Imagine, announcing to their entire community that he got his jollies with other _men._ It was brilliant, really. Sirius might have been the most cunning of all of them, if only he was doing any of this on purpose. Perhaps that is ultimately why he didn’t make the cut for Slytherin. Because he really did have the capacity to be brilliant. But in the end he was just stupid.

And the funny thing is, none of it would have been possible if it weren’t for Regulus. The Blacks _could_ let him go, you see, because they had a back-up. They had Regulus, to take up the mantle when Sirius abandoned his post. And so it was, Sirius successfully extracted himself from this life and Regulus was left to carry out the grand plan. To carry on the Black name and reputation. To act as though this were a privilege, rather than a burden. And to live his life the way he was _expected_ to.

How’s that for a hard place?

And there would be no escape for Regulus. He did not have the same capacity as his brother (be it bravery, or stupidity) to stand unflinching in the face of unspeakable punishment for failing his duties. He did not have the allies, to support him should he turn his back on the sacred 28. And he did not have a little brother, to take on the responsibilities that he shirked. His parents would not let him go, of that he was certain. He was the last hope for the house of Black. And so, what else could he be?

He hated his brother for putting him in this impossible situation. But at the same time, he couldn’t hate his brother, because could Regulus honestly say he wouldn’t have done exactly the same, if he were in Sirius’s shoes? Well, maybe all apart from bedding that werewolf boy. Regulus wasn’t particularly put off by the werewolf part, he had somewhat of an affinity for misunderstood creatures (possibly a by-product of growing up with Kreacher as his closest companion). But honestly, having relations with his dorm-mates. It just wasn’t _proper._ But that was Sirius.

Really, it was easier just not to think about it. Because thinking about it would only lead to anger and confusion and resentment, and there was really no point in wasting time on such pointless emotions. The situation was what it was. Regulus was the sole heir of the house of Black. And he no longer had a brother.

 

-

 

“I hear Lestrange has proposed to that Bellatrix girl.”

“A fine match. They’re both as unhinged as each other, don’t you think?”

“She is fanatic about this Death Eater movement. Keeps trying to set up a meeting with Voldemort apparently.”

“Unsuccessfully I presume?”

“Of course. The man is busy after all. Besides, what does she have to offer?”

“Perhaps after the marriage. Slightly stronger bloodline.”

Avery shot Regulus a covert look, obviously hoping for a reaction. He and Mulciber had crossed Regulus’s path as he returned from the library and had tailed him halfway across the castle chattering this inane nonsense. They had been doing this for the past month or so ever since they returned from the Christmas holidays. They kept making pointed comments about various parts of the Black family tree, clearly trying to goad Regulus into giving away some gossip. He steadfastly ignored them.

“The bloodline is strong enough” Mulciber countered, trying a different tactic. “Isn’t she your sister or something?” he directed to Regulus.

“Cousin” Regulus replied curtly. He didn’t particularly want to get drawn into whatever this conversation was. He also didn’t really want to discuss Voldemort and his ‘political party’, for lack of a better see description. Regulus hadn’t quite made up his mind how he felt about all that yet, and it wouldn’t do to express an opinion one way or the other until it became clear what this man's intentions were.

“Yes of course. She is Narcissa’s sister.”

“And Andromeda...”

“Ah, now perhaps _that_ is affecting Bellatrix’s reputation. Andromeda is involved with a muggle, is she not?”

There was a tense silence, in which Regulus knew that both of them were waiting for him to confirm or deny this. He did neither, continuing to walk slightly ahead of them without acknowledging their presence. As though they were insignificant enough to be beneath his notice. Which, in a manner of speaking, they were.

“Disgusting, is what it is” Avery piped up when it became clear that Regulus wasn’t going to offer any response. “Carrying on with muggles. It ought to be illegal.”

“Maybe soon it will be” Mulciber added. “The muggle lovers are as bad as the queers, if you ask me.”

Something inside Regulus snapped at this, as given all the previous remarks the two of them had just made about his bloodline he was quite sure that this was a dig about Sirius.

“You are talking absolute nonsense as usual Mulciber” Regulus shot back icily. “What on earth do muggles have to do with queers?”

Avery broke out into a malicious grin at this and Regulus internally cursed himself for letting the two of them get a rise out of him.

“Struck a nerve, eh?” Avery sneered. “Don’t tell us you’re a shirtlifter too, like that brother of yours.”

“I’m sure I don’t know what you mean” Regulus replied defiantly, putting every ounce of effort into stopping his hands from shaking. “I don't have a brother.”

Avery looked mildly taken aback by this. Mulciber was eagerly looking between the two of them, evidently hoping for a full blown argument. Fortunately they were nearly at the common room, so hopefully Regulus could swiftly exit this conversation without creating any drama. Unfortunately however he turned a corner and saw that the next corridor was occupied by the redhead Gryffindor prefect girl. Regulus hesitated for a fraction of a second and Avery and Mulciber both followed his gaze. Regulus had quite a finely tuned sense of impending danger, given his upbringing, and that alarm started to go off. He prayed as hard as he could without showing any emotion on his face that the other two would let the girl pass without incident.

The girl looked slightly wary of the three of them slowly walking towards her, all three staring at her, but to her credit she continued to calmly walk towards them, moving slightly to the side to pass them. Regulus knew exactly what was about to happen and racked his brains for any possible way to diffuse it, but came up short.

Mulciber stepped to the side as they approached her, blocking her path. The girl frowned slightly and stepped the other way, trying to move around him, but Mulciber mirrored her movements not letting her pass.

“Speaking of muggles...” Avery said quietly. Regulus felt slightly sick. He was no good in these sorts of situations. He didn’t know what to do.

“Excuse me” the girl said firmly, scowling at Mulciber and attempting to push past him. She was absolutely no match for his bulk though, and he rebuffed her without even raising an arm. Regulus stiffened as he realised that Avery had slowly drawn his wand.

“Seriously?” the girl said incredulously.

“What are YOU doing down here?” Mulciber snarled in response. To Regulus’s great surprise the girl did not show any sign that she was intimidated and simply stood there looking angrily up at him.

“It's a free country isn’t it?” she replied coldly.

“This is Slytherin territory” Avery said warningly. Regulus saw her eyes dart towards his wand. “You would do well to stick to your own tower. Your _kind_ aren’t welcome here...”

The girl narrowed her eyes at this, but Regulus could sense her fear starting to grow. He noticed her hand slowly start to move towards her pocket, obviously reaching for her wand.  

“What do you mean _my kind?_ ” she demanded as her hand reached her pocket. This did not go unnoticed by Avery who flicked his own wand at her, causing her to jump backwards shaking her hand as though it had just been burned.

“You know what he means, Mudblood!” Mulciber snapped.

The girl looked shocked, but she defiantly reached for her wand again. This time Mulciber shot a hex at her that seemed to push her back forcefully and she fell to the floor. Regulus wanted to scream at her to run, but the silly girl did nothing. She slowly lifted herself up onto her forearms, breathing heavily and Regulus wondered if perhaps she was actually quite injured.

“What did you do?” he hissed at Mulciber.

“Don’t tell me you’ve gone soft on mudbloods as well, Black” Mulciber jeered. “You really _are_ following in your brother's footsteps.”

“Black...?” the girl looked up at him slightly confused, then a look of sudden understanding formed on her face. “ _Reg?_ ”

Regulus felt like someone had punched him in the stomach. Only Sirius had ever called him that. He looked wide-eyed down at her, not knowing what to say. He couldn’t defend her against Avery and Mulciber, not without coming under further fire about where his loyalties lay. But at the same time he didn’t have it in himself to condemn her.

“Do not speak to us as if you know us, muggle” Avery said maliciously.

“I’m a witch!” she shouted back, trying to scramble to her feet. Before she managed it Mulciber fired another hex at her, sending her even further backwards along the floor. Blood was now pouring from her nose. She messily tried to stem the flow with one hand while groping for her wand with the other, but she seemed to be disorientated and couldn’t quite get her hand into her pocket.

“That’s enough” Regulus said quietly, putting a hand on Mulciber’s shoulder. Mulciber shrugged it off aggressively.

“I'll say when it’s enough” he snarled, advancing on the girl, who seemed to be losing consciousness.


	8. Almost

“Damn” James muttered, squinting at his watch. He was going to be late.

He started jogging down the dark passageway, hoping he could get back to the dorm before Peter got back from gobstones club. It was Peter’s birthday tomorrow and someone (Sirius) had pilfered the bottle of firewhisky that James had been saving for the occasion, so he had had to nip into Hogsmeade for another. So now here he was, jogging along with a large bottle of the stuff rattling around in his backpack. He was determined that they weren’t going to miss the toast this time. They had already missed it on Remus’s birthday, because of the full moon, and on Sirius’s birthday, because of that cursed letter his parents had sent. It had been a pretty fucked up year, all-in-all. But now was the time to pick themselves up and start doing it right again. They were marauders, after all. And James could REALLY do with a good night of drunken shenanigans.

He was also sort of hoping that getting everyone drunk and having a good laugh would help to lessen some of the obvious tension between Sirius and Remus. He didn’t really know the specifics of what was going on, which was an unusual enough situation in itself, since the marauders were usually unhealthily involved in each other’s personal lives – James and Sirius, especially. But _something_ was clearly up. James didn’t feel right about prying for further information, and neither of them had offered it, so James’s understanding of the situation was based on small observations. The way Remus sometimes pulled his hand away when Sirius reached for it. The way Sirius would be frowning in concern at Remus when he thought no-one else was looking. The way Sirius would sigh resignedly and just _take_ it, whenever Remus snapped at him, which was happening with increasing frequency.

James didn’t like it. He didn’t like seeing his brother hurt like that. And he especially didn’t like the fact that a small amount of resentment towards Moony was building up inside him as a result. He had swore blind when Sirius and Remus’s feelings for each other had become apparent that he would never let anything affect their friendship and that he would never choose between them. But deep down James was slightly ashamed to admit that it wasn’t true. If there had to be a choice, he would choose Sirius, he knew he would. But he REALLY hoped that it would never come to that.

James shook his head in exasperation. Moony didn’t know how lucky he was, to have the person he was crazy about feel the same way. And to have no obstacles to being with said person. Well, on second thoughts, it wasn’t true that there were _no_ obstacles, it’s not like they could ever get married or anything. But still. Given his own situation James found it very hard to be sympathetic.

He finally reached the end of the passageway, pulling out the marauders map to check if anyone was around. The corridor outside was currently empty, but to his surprise he saw Sirius and Peter approaching with speed. He pocketed the map, frowning in confusion, and pulled himself out of the hole behind the statue, just sealing it behind himself as Sirius came running down the corridor towards him (Peter quite a way behind, wheezing and spluttering).

“Prongs!” Sirius’s serious and slightly panicked tone made James go onto high alert instantly. “It’s Evans. She’s been attacked.” Sirius skidded to a stop where James was stood next to the statue.

“Attacked?!”

“S… Slytherins… Common room…” Peter panted, finally catching up to them, bending over almost double trying to catch his breath.

“In the Slytherin common room?” James was very confused.

“No, no, outside it” Sirius said impatiently. “No-one knows who did it, McGonagall’s going absolutely mental. She came to Gryffindor asking if anyone knew anything about it. Evans is in the hospital wing, still unconscious apparently.”

James didn’t even take the time to respond to Sirius before taking off running in the direction of the hospital wing. He heard Peter splutter in protest, but he and Sirius must be following, because Sirius caught up with James in no time and James could hear Peter behind them.

“You don’t think Snape had anything to do with it, do you?” Sirius asked James as they ran. James briefly considered the possibility, but it didn’t really make sense.

“No, I don’t think so” he replied. “He’s supposed to be in love with her or something.”

“Maybe she rejected him and that’s why” Sirius countered. James still thought it unlikely.

“Nah” he said simply. He was starting to get a little out of breath and they leaped up the stairs, two at a time. He paused for a minute to catch his breath at the top.

“She’s muggle born. That’s reason enough. It could have been any of them” he told Sirius. The two of them waited for Peter, who appeared at the bottom of the stairs after a few seconds. He gave the huge staircase a defeated look, before shouting to them to go ahead and that he would catch up. James gave him an appreciative nod and took off again. Sirius hot on his heels.

“I’m sorry, mate” Sirius said as they ran again.

“Wha- what for?” James asked distractedly.

“All of it” Sirius said quietly. James shook his head impatiently.

“There’s more pressing matters right now Sirius, we’ll talk about how much of a dickhead you are later.”

They reached the long corridor leading to the hospital wing and James broke into a sprint, tearing down it. Between Remus, Sirius and now Lily he felt like he’d spent half of the last year running down this bloody corridor. He tried to stop just short of the doors but had evidently built up too much momentum and went crashing into them, ending up clattering into the ward arse-first with an almightly bang.

“WHAT IN THE WORLD DO YOU THINK YOU’RE DOING?” Madam Pomfrey yelled, advancing on him as James haphazardly scrambled to his feet, vowing to buy some new trainers with better grip. It was a mark of the seriousness of the situation that Sirius was not laughing his head off as he appeared behind James, putting a gentle hand on his shoulder.

“Sorry Poppy, we just heard about our friend-“ Sirius started to explain placidly, but James cut him off as he saw none other than Snape stood next to a bed at the far end of the room.

“YOU!” he shouted accusingly, pointing a finger at him. Sirius tried to push his arm down but James elbowed him away. “YOU GET AWAY FROM HER!”

“MR POTTER” McGonagall seemed to appear out of nowhere (she must have been in Pomfrey’s office or something). “THIS is a _hospital_ , leave right now and go and calm yourself down before I give you detention!”

“But Evans-”

“Miss Evans has had quite a nasty shock and doesn’t need people crashing in here causing a scene” McGonagall told him sternly. James opened his mouth to argue, but this time Pomfrey cut across him.

“Miss Evans is going to be fine, she just needs REST.”

“But-“ James pointed towards Snape again and Pomfrey cut across him again.

“I was just telling your friend here the same thing. Now all of you please _leave_ now. You may come back tomorrow during visiting hours.”

“He’s not our friend” James muttered darkly, but allowed Sirius to steer him outside. Snape followed them out and James knew it wasn’t a good idea to antagonise him, but he needed an outlet for his anger.

“What do YOU know about this?” he rounded on him as soon as Snape stepped into the corridor.

“Not _here_ Potter” Snape hissed, jerking his head for James to follow as he walked down the corridor. James begrudgingly agreed it was probably best to do this out of earshot of McGonagall and stalked after him, Sirius loyally by his side.

“What do you KNOW about this?” James repeated as soon as they reached the adjacent corridor, well away from the entrance to the hospital wing.

“Nothing as of yet, but rest assured I will get to the bottom of it” Snape scowled.

“Don’t give me that shit!” James spat. “You Slytherins are all in this little muggle-bashing club together, don’t tell me you weren’t involved!” He knew full well this was in direct contradiction of the conversation he had had with Sirius not ten minutes ago, but he was too angry to think clearly.

“Think Potter, think!” Snape replied fiercely. “Difficult as I’m sure it is for you, use your brain! What possible reason would I have to harm her? I’ve been trying to protect her from _your_ lot all year haven’t I?”

James scowled but had no response to that.

“And by the way, that situation has not changed. I still don’t want YOU anywhere near her. That includes when she is in the hospital wing.”

“If you think we’re just going to sit back and let you-“ Sirius began furiously.

“Then the consequences will be on the wolf’s head!” Snape interrupted. “Is your memory really so short, Black?”

James saw Sirius’s knuckles whiten as he clenched his hands into fists but he said nothing. James didn’t want to argue about that again. Not while Lily was lying unconscious in the hospital. There were bigger issues here.

“Whatever Snape” James said through gritted teeth. “I’ll stay away, fine, I’ve been holding up my end of the bargain so far, haven’t I?” James paused and waited for Snape to acknowledge this, but he didn’t, merely looking at James and Sirius with disdain. “But if you find out who did it” James went on. “You better tell me!”

“WHEN I find out who is responsible” Snape drawled, “ _I_ will deal with it.”

“Like hell you will!” Sirius snapped.

“Keep your mutt on a tighter leash!” Snape hissed at James, who tensed at his choice of words. Was it purely coincidence? He couldn’t possibly know…

“If you continue to try my patience Black then I will have your _fuck boy_ put down by the ministry, make no mistake of that” Snape snarled and Sirius lunged at him. James caught him just in time, falling over and taking Sirius with him in the effort of restraining him.

“YOU FUCK!” Sirius screamed, practically incoherent, his limbs tangled with James’s in a heap on the floor. James received an elbow to the nose and felt blood start to drip down from it, but he held onto Sirius’s arms with every ounce of strength he had, knowing the situation would get exponentially worse if Sirius was allowed to get at Snape.

“Where is he anyway? Having himself checked for fleas or something?” Snape asked antagonistically. The bastard actually smiled. He actually fucking smiled. James very nearly let go of Sirius at that. Sirius certainly redoubled his efforts to wrench himself free of James, and James got another eye-watering dig in the face.

“Snape, get the fuck out of here, now!” James yelled.

Snape looked as though he would quite liked to have stayed and taunted them some more, but he straightened up and walked off, turning back to smirk at them one last time before he disappeared around the corner. The reason he had decided to slither away became apparent as McGonagall ascended upon them, apparently having finished consulting with Pomfrey in the hospital wing. She looked down at them and sighed in obvious frustration. James looked up at her, very aware of the blood all over his lips and chin, still holding onto Sirius who was oblivious to the whole thing and still trying to break free to go after Snape.

“I thought I told you to calm down” she said, in a softer and less authoritative tone than James was expecting. Sirius jumped at hearing her voice and turned round in surprise. He finally stopped struggling and James decided it was safe to release him.

McGonagall reached out a hand to help the two of them up. James took it in surprise. Sirius got up by himself, brushing off his robes with violently shaking hands.

“Do I have to walk you back to the common room myself to make sure you get there?” McGonagall asked, but she didn’t sound that angry. She sounded almost defeated. A tone that James had very rarely heard from her before. He frowned in slight confusion at Sirius, who didn’t seem to be paying any attention whatsoever and was clenching his fists so tightly that James was surprised his knuckles didn’t rip right through his skin.

“No. Sorry, Professor,” he muttered.

“She _will_ be alright” McGonagall told him firmly after clearing her throat, sounding much more like herself again. “And those responsible _will_ be punished accordingly.”

James nodded, not quite meeting her eye, sure that the fury he felt towards the perpetrators would show on his face.

“But perhaps, going forward” McGonagall hesitated for a split second, and even Sirius looked up at this. “We all ought to keep our eyes open. And look out for one another” she finished seriously.

James nodded slowly to show that he understood before looking sideways at Sirius, who’s eyes were narrowed pensively. The two of them exchanged a dark look before McGonagall bade them good night and reminded them to return to the common room without taking any detours.

The two of them trudged towards the common room in silence. James was thinking about what McGonagall had said. Were things really getting that bad? So bad that the teachers were barely containing it anymore? He looked to Sirius who was also brooding, but on an altogether different subject, James was sure.

“Where _is_ Moony?” he asked him quietly. Sirius looked mildly startled by the question, which seemed to pull him out of whatever deep and dark thoughts he had been lost in.

“No idea” Sirius replied flatly. “Disappeared again. He does that.”

James frowned and pulled out the map but Sirius put a hand on top of it preventing him from opening it.

“He doesn’t want us to find him” Sirius said simply.

“That doesn’t mean we shouldn’t” James argued, surprised at his friend’s willingness to just let Remus run off like this.

“Trust me, it’ll make it worse, making him come back before he’s ready” Sirius sighed, and James realised that Sirius must have done this before. He opened his mouth to ask if everything was OK, but thought better of it. Things obviously weren’t OK. Before he could think of a better question however, Peter appeared in front of them, taking the invisibility cloak off himself.

“ _There_ you are!” Peter cried, sounding relieved rather than annoyed. “I’ve been looking everywhere. I got cut off by Flitwick on my way to the hospital wing, he told me to go back to the tower since it’s nearly curfew.”

“So you ignored him completely and went to get the cloak to come anyway?” James smiled for the first time all evening.

“Of course” Peter shrugged, as though this were the only logical course of action.

“Cheers mate” James said fondly, taking the cloak that Peter was holding out to him. “We probably should get back though” he said begrudgingly, glancing at Sirius. Snape had more than likely gone back to the Slytherin common room, but it wasn’t beyond the realms of possibility that they would run into him again. Sirius saw him looking and shook his head.

“We’ll go back” he told James. “You go see Evans. Take the cloak.”

James gave him a smile which he returned with a curt nod. James held the map out to him.

“You take this then. In case you change your mind.”

“I won’t” Sirius replied, but took the map anyway. Peter looked confusedly between them but didn’t question it.

“Oh, and this. Here” James added, shrugging off his bag and holding it out to Peter. Peter nearly dropped it, apparently surprised by its weight.

“For the toast” James told him, and Peter grinned.

“We’ll wait for you though, yeah?” Peter said hopefully.

“Don’t know how long I’ll be” James said truthfully. “Don’t bother waiting.”

“We’ll wait” Peter responded firmly and James smiled again.

“OK, sure. Thanks Wormy.”

Peter beamed at him before he and Sirius walked away and James threw the cloak over himself.

 

-

 

Lily was awake when James re-entered the hospital wing and having a quiet conversation with Pomfrey. James loitered by the doorway – he hadn’t been expecting this. He couldn’t hear what they were talking about but presumably Pomfrey was making sure she wasn’t concussed or something. James had been expecting to find the ward deserted and to sit by Lily’s bedside under the cloak for a little while. In light of the fact that she was awake that plan now seemed quite creepy.

He was trying to decide what to do when Pomfrey abruptly stood up and walked right towards him. He quickly stepped to the side to let her pass and she exited the hospital wing. James peered after her. She was definitely going somewhere, walking all the way to the end of the long approach corridor and then disappearing around the corner. James decided to take off the cloak, since she would probably be gone for at least a few minutes, and walked towards Lily’s bed.

She looked up as she heard him approach and sat up in the bed, pulling the covers up nervously.

“James?!” she exclaimed in surprise. James was very taken aback by the use of his first name and raised an eyebrow. Lily hastily corrected herself.

“I mean, Potter… What are you doing here?”

James shrugged, finding that he didn’t quite know what to say to that. It just felt wrong to be anywhere else right now.

“Just wanted to make sure you’re OK I suppose” he offered. Was it his imagination or did she look pleased about that?

“Pomfrey says I’ll be fine. I don’t really remember what happened though” she told him.

“So you don’t know who it was?”

“No” Lily looked troubled and James sat on the edge of her bed. He wanted to hold her hand but he wasn’t sure if he should so he didn’t.

“They’ll find out who it was, don’t worry” James said gently. “And if _they_ don’t, _we_ will” he added firmly.

“Thanks” Lily said quietly. That wasn’t like her. Usually she’d tell him off at the mere idea of him getting himself in trouble. And she’d definitely have a go at him for involving himself in her business. She must be really shaken up.

“Are you OK?” he asked seriously. “I mean, I know Pomfrey said you’re OK, but… are you _OK?”_

Lily looked as though she didn’t quite know how to answer that, from which James surmised that she was NOT OK.

“I just hate not knowing who did it” she shuddered.

“Apparently it happened outside the Slytherin common room” James told her. Lily tilted her head to the side frowning.

“I think… I remember someone saying it was Slytherin territory” she said slowly. “ _Your kind aren’t welcome here_ ” she imitated someone with a deep voice. James scowled.

“Who said that to you?” he asked sharply.

“I don’t know” Lily frowned, looking upset. James instinctively reached out and placed his hand reassuringly on top of hers. She looked into his eyes with an expression James had never seen before. But the moment was short lived as they both heard two people approaching the hospital wing from the corridor outside. James leaped up and threw the cloak over himself just in time to see Pomfrey come back in accompanied by McGonagall.

He carefully moved away from Lily’s bed as they both came over. McGonagall sat down to ask Lily some questions and James was thinking he ought to leave them to it, but Lily shouted out ‘don’t leave!’

Both Pomfrey and McGonagall looked alarmed and Pomfrey sat on the end of the bed, assuring Lily she wasn’t going anywhere. However James was quite sure Lily had been talking to him. So he stayed, standing nearby and listening as McGonagall asked all the questions you might expect. What had she been doing, what was the last thing she remembered etc. Lily was getting increasingly agitated at not being able to remember anything useful and kept apologising. Both McGonagall and Pomfrey were very nice about it and did their best to reassure her, but the simple fact was there was really nothing they could do. McGonagall said that they would continue to investigate the matter and hold those responsible accountable. But Pomfrey admitted she wasn’t sure what had caused the memory loss and so couldn’t be sure if the memories would return.

McGonagall finally finished her questioning and bade Lily good night, wishing her a speedy recovery. Pomfrey offered Lily some sleeping potion but Lily declined, asking if it was OK if she read a book for a while instead. Pomfrey begrudgingly agreed, summoning a small stack of books from the windowsill and dropping them onto Lily’s bedside table. She then also left, turning all the lights off except for the ones closest to Lily’s bed, which she set on a timer to extinguish in an hours time.

James waited for a minute or so after she had gone, in case she had forgotten something and came back (many a prank had been foiled in their earlier years before they started taking this precaution). However he swiftly took the cloak off when Lily tentatively called out to him.

“James? Are you still there?”

“I’m here” he smiled, approaching her bed again. She looked relieved and took his hand in both of her own as he resumed his perch. He couldn’t help himself from grinning, but internally told himself not to read into it. She had just had a big shock and needed some comforting, that was all.

“Sorry, that took forever, you must have been bored senseless” she said quietly, looking down. “And I was so useless as well.”

“Hey” he tugged on her hands a little to get her to look up at him. “It’s OK, it’s not your fault.”

Lily nodded but looked no less worried.

“James, why do they…? Why am I…?” she shook her head, apparently struggling to say whatever was on her mind. James had seen this behaviour many times before in Remus and said nothing, letting her work it out.

“Do you think I’m a muggle?” she asked finally.

“You what?” James asked. He realised that this wasn’t a very tactful response, but the question had taken him surprise and he wasn’t sure he even understood what she meant.

“Do you think I’m a muggle?” she repeated desperately.

“No…” James was no less confused. “You’re a witch” he told her slowly. “Not that there’s anything wrong with being a muggle” he added, shrugging.

“What about being muggle-born?” she whispered, not meeting his eye. James threw all caution to the wind and placed a hand under her chin, gently lifting her head up to look at him again.

“Lily, look at me” he said kindly. “There is NOTHING wrong with being muggle born” he told her firmly. A single tear leaked down her cheek but she didn’t change her expression at all. It was hard to read. A sort of mixture of fear, confusion and… something else. Something like hope, maybe?

“Don’t you ever listen to those aresholes, Lils. You’re wonderful” he told her, his own voice barely above a whisper.

James’s breath caught in his throat as she started to lean towards him. His hand seemed to act of its own accord, moving slowly around from under her chin to gently cradle her cheek as her face inched closer. James felt his eyes close as their lips ever so lightly touched together before something like a bolt of lightning jolted through him bringing him to his senses and he jumped back.

James saw the hurt instantly on Lily’s face and it took everything in him not to pull her in and kiss her again. But this wasn’t right. She was scared and confused, she wasn’t thinking clearly. It was wrong to take advantage like this.

Snape’s voice also echoed in his head. Mere hours earlier he had been threatening to have Remus _put down._ James doubted that that was within his power, but he could certainly get Remus kicked out of school. James wasn’t going to let that happen. Not when it was in his power to stop it.

“James… I…” Lily reached out towards him. “I’m sorry…”

“No, I’m sorry” he said desperately, standing up and backing away, removing the temptation. “I’m so sorry, Lily, I have to go.”

He couldn’t stand to look at her with that hurt and longing expression on her face for a second longer. He grabbed the cloak and ran out of there, ignoring her calling after him. He ran all the way back to Gryffindor tower without stopping once.


	9. Love

Remus woke up groggily sometime in the early hours of the morning. The left arm under his head was throbbing with painful pins and needles, which must have been what woke him up. He straightened it out, flexing his fingers to try and get the blood back into his hand. As he did so, his head rested back onto the cold stone floor and he blinked a few times, looking blearily around, realising that he was in the Astronomy tower. His brain slowly caught up and he realised that he must have fallen asleep after coming up here earlier for a bit of peace and quiet.

The full moon was just around the corner so Remus didn’t particularly _want_ to look at the night sky, with the large moon growing ever bigger, taunting him. But he was having to go to increasingly extreme measures to avoid Sirius. He’d even briefly considered going to the shack, but of course that was a stupid idea. He couldn’t possibly think straight in there.

Not that having the space to think clearly really helped. The internal struggle he was having kept going around in circles with no logical conclusion. He was a werewolf. He was destined to a life of struggles and suffering. Anyone he was involved with was subject to the same suffering, be they family, friends, but none more so than a lover. Knowing Remus, in any capacity really, was a terrible burden. But for no-one was it a bigger burden than his partner. The person who relied on him for love and support. How could Remus possibly offer these things?

And Sirius… Sirius was the absolute worse choice of a partner for Remus really, because he needed MORE love and support than most. Because he didn’t get much of it from anywhere else. And he deserved it, he really did. That beautiful man deserved the world. And Remus couldn’t give it to him. Remus couldn’t give anything much worthwhile to anyone.

And Sirius said he didn’t care about all of that. He had professed he would happily live in a cardboard box with Remus, so long as they were together. And he meant it too, the moron. So why shouldn’t Remus let Sirius love him? Let Sirius decide for himself whether he was willing to sacrifice stability and normality in exchange for love. Because Remus _did_ love him, of that he was sure. And that was why he selfishly carried this thing on. Stayed with Sirius, even though he knew he was hurting him. Because he couldn’t bear the thought of not having him like this anymore. He would do anything for Sirius. He would die for him. Not that that was really saying much, because Remus’s life wasn’t really that valuable. But it was all he had to give, so he would, willingly. And when Sirius held Remus’s hands in his and gently pressed his lips to Remus’s… it felt like nothing else in the world mattered.

But it did, that was the problem. The other things did matter, and Remus was so racked with guilt about what he was doing to Sirius that he ended up pushing him away, not wanting to hurt him anymore. But that in itself hurt Sirius. Remus could see it in his eyes, how much it hurt him when Remus pulled away.

So Remus was stuck in this endless cycle of love and guilt and hurt. And Sirius was getting battered and bruised by it and they couldn’t go on like this. But Remus didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t stop feeling guilty. But he couldn’t stop loving Sirius. So here they were. 

Remus sighed heavily as he slowly sat up, all of his muscles screaming in protest. Everywhere that had been in direct contact with the floor was freezing cold and incredibly sore. He vaguely wondered what time it was and scowled when he thought about how much trouble he’d be in if anyone caught him skulking around the castle at this time of night. He didn’t even have the map with him, because James had taken it earlier. He also felt a horrible pang of guilt about how Sirius must be out of his mind with worry.

“You’re a right bastard, Moony, you know that?” he muttered to himself as he gingerly stood up.

 

-

 

Miraculously, Remus managed to make it all the way back to Gryffindor Tower without incident. He had to dodge McGonagall a few corridors down who was inexplicably roaming the castle, as though searching for something. Luckily Remus has been passing by a secret passage at the time and managed to duck into it.

He didn’t even bother to look around the common room as he passed through, assuming it would be empty at this hour. He froze however when he heard James’s voice.

“Late night?”

He slowly turned around to see James sat broodingly in an armchair in front of the dying fire. He didn’t even look up at Remus but his expression and tone were unmistakably furious.

“Didn’t mean for it to be” Remus muttered, nervously fiddling with the cuffs of his jumper. “I fell asleep.”

“Well, all hell broke loose while you weren’t here” James replied darkly. “Lily got attacked by the Slytherins, she’s in the hospital wing.”

“WHAT?”

“Yeah.”

Remus walked around to face James who still didn’t look at him.

“James, what happened?!”

“Well that’s just it, no-one knows” James said, his voice still low and brooding. “She doesn’t remember. But it was definitely about her blood status.”

“James… I’m so sorry, that’s awful. Is she alright?” Remus asked, crouching down in front of James in an effort to meet his eyes. He almost wished he hadn’t when James finally looked at him with obvious anger on his face.

“Pomfrey says she’ll be fine, but that’s not really the point, is it?”

Remus didn’t know what to say to that. He was greatly relieved to hear she was physically unhurt. But James was right, that didn’t really mean everything was fine.

“And we all missed Peter’s birthday. You better apologise to him tomorrow” James said resentfully.

“I know. I will” Remus said, his tone apologetic.

“And Sirius” James said, looking away from him again. “Not that you care I suppose but he’s been out of his mind with worry probably.”

“I _do_ care” Remus replied indignantly. He knew that James was very upset and was just taking it out on Remus because he was here. But that had hurt a little. Mostly because he had a point.

“Could have fooled me” James muttered. Remus scowled but didn’t respond, not wanting to start an argument when James was clearly being irrational. He got up from the floor and walked in the direction of the dormitories.

“We’ll talk tomorrow James, OK?” he said as he went, not looking back.

“Whatever Moony” James replied flatly.

 

-

 

Remus pushed the dormitory door open slowly, trying not to make any noise, hoping that Sirius would be asleep.

“Moony?” Sirius’s voice was quiet and hopeful. Remus looked over and saw that he was sat up in his own bed, the hangings open. He had evidently been waiting for him. Remus internally cursed himself for falling asleep up there.

“Yeah it’s me” he replied softly, creeping further into the room.

“You alright?” Sirius asked quietly. There was weight behind the question. Remus knew that what Sirius was really asking was ‘where have you been?’

“I’m OK” Remus replied simply, not wanting to say where he’d been. Because then he wouldn’t be able to go there again the next time he needed some space. He loitered awkwardly in the space between his and Sirius’s beds, unsure what to do. He would like to get into his own bed, pull the covers over his head and pretend the whole evening hadn’t happened, but he knew coming back so late like this wasn’t fair and he at least owed Sirius an apology. Not to mention that James would probably kick the shit out of him in the morning if he didn’t make this right.

“I’m sorry” he said earnestly. He meant it too, but he knew it wasn’t in any way enough to justify disappearing all night. Sirius took it however and nodded grimly. Usually Sirius responded to Remus’s apologies with ‘it’s OK’, but this time he didn’t. Meaning it wasn’t OK.

Remus turned towards his bed and started to undress, cursing himself again for being such an insensitive prick.

“Do you want to…?” Sirius offered hesitantly. Remus turned back around and saw Sirius lifting up the covers at one edge, inviting Remus in. Remus swallowed nervously. He did want to. Very much. But at the same time he didn’t. Not when Sirius must be so angry with him too. Not when he had every right to be.

“Please?” Sirius added in a very small voice. Remus’s heart broke slightly and he nodded. He slipped into Sirius’s bed wearing only his underwear, not bothering with pyjamas. He felt completely awful, and this feeling was only exacerbated by Sirius’s tentative movements towards him. Remus had known Sirius for a very long time and had been able to read him like a book even before they were together like this. And he knew that Sirius wanted to smother him right now – to tangle the two of them together and to burrow into him and hold on tightly until he felt loved again. But he didn’t dare. Instead he lay a good foot away from Remus, very slowly laying a single hand gently on Remus’s chest, as though he were afraid Remus might push him away if he tried anything more. Remus felt like complete scum.

Remus gathered Sirius in his arms and pulled him roughly in towards him.

“I’m sorry” Remus whispered in between planting kisses on the top of his head, while Sirius snaked his arms around Remus and squeezed him uncomfortably tightly. Sirius nodded but Remus knew it still wasn’t nearly enough.

“I’m so sorry Pads” he whispered. “I love you.”

Sirius wriggled free and raised his head to look Remus in the eyes. Remus noticed with a horrible lurch of guilt that his cheeks were shining with tears.

“Tonight Rem, were you…?” Sirius faltered and looked intently at him, with so much hurt in his eyes that Remus wanted to jump out the window for ever making him feel like that.

“Was I what?” Remus asked softly, cradling Sirius’s head in his hands and wiping his cheeks with his thumbs.

“Were you with someone else?” Sirius whispered. Remus hadn’t thought it was possible for him to feel any worse, but he did. He felt tears start to sting his own eyes.

“Fuck, no!” Remus exclaimed. Across the room Peter stirred and muttered something in his sleep. Remus closed the hangings around Sirius’s bed, before looking back at Sirius who was silently crying, tears streaming down his face.

“Come here” Remus said softly, pulling Sirius into his chest again and kissing his head some more. “Of course I wasn’t with anyone else, I can’t believe you would even think that. I love YOU. Only you. Only ever you.”

Sirius nodded again but didn’t say anything. Remus held him tighter.

“I just… I wanted some time by myself, that’s all. I didn’t want to deal with the fucking toast. And I fell asleep. I didn’t mean to. I’m really sorry.”

Sirius sniffed and pulled back again, wiping his face on the backs of his hands.

“I thought you liked the toast” he said, looking confused.

Remus smiled grimly.

“It wasn’t really about the toast. It was about pretending everything is alright when it’s all fucked. When James is miserable because of this whole thing and it’s all my fault.”

“It’s all MY fault” Sirius argued. “We’ve been over this.”

“It doesn’t matter” Remus said quickly, not wanting to have THAT argument again. “The point is it’s all fucked. And I… I don’t feel good about it, OK?”

Sirius paused, apparently letting that sink in. He looked thoughtful as he took one of Remus’s hands and entwined their fingers together.

“You once told me I don’t have to pretend, in front of you, you remember that?” he said. Remus nodded, smiling at the memory.

“Well you don’t have to pretend for me, either” Sirius told him. “You can tell me when you’re not OK, you know? You don’t have to be OK all the time.”

Remus nodded, but he privately disagreed. If he told Sirius whenever he wasn’t alright the conversation would never end. And Sirius would try and make it better, when he couldn’t possibly. And he would say it was all alright, when it wasn’t.

Still, as Remus leant forward to kiss Sirius gently on the lips he resolved to work much harder at this communication thing. He _had_ to stop hurting him like this. He had to be better.

“I’ve been such an arse, Sirius” Remus muttered as their lips parted. Sirius smiled for this first time and Remus’s insides melted.

“Yeah, you have” Sirius replied without anger, kissing him again. “It’s a good job I love you, isn’t it?”

Remus pulled Sirius on top of him, deepening their kisses. As he pulled Sirius’s t-shirt off over his head something caught his eye and he twisted Sirius’s arm around for a better look.

“You’ve got blood on your elbow” he told Sirius, who was gently nipping at Remus’s neck and sat up, looking flushed.

“What?” Sirius twisted his own arm around trying to see, but it was out of his field of vision. Remus laughed a little.

“It’s probably James’s” Sirius shrugged, diving down to assault Remus with kisses again. Remus did not bother to ask how James’s blood had come to be on Sirius’s elbow.

“Oh shit, you don’t know” Sirius said seriously, sitting up abruptly.

“Don’t know what?” Remus asked warily.

“About Evans…”

“I know a bit. James is downstairs, he went off on me when I came in.”

“He’s downstairs?” Sirius looked surprised by this.

“Yeah, why, wasn’t he up here before?”

“No, he went to the hospital wing to see her.”

“Ah.” Well that certainly explained why he was so furious. And confrontational.

“She is alright isn’t she?” Remus asked, concerned by the grave look on Sirius’s face.

“Yeah, McGonagall said she was fine. I mean, it’s still a bit fucked up though isn’t it?”

“Yeah, that’s what James said” Remus said, gently tucking Sirius’s long hair behind his ear. “Give or take a profanity.”

“I’m surprised if he isn’t swearing his head off down there” Sirius said, looking a little less worried and leaning back down over Remus, propping himself up on an elbow next to Remus’s head. “He didn’t give you too much of a hard time, did he?”

Remus smiled, and placed a gentle kiss on Sirius’s lips.

“No more than I deserved” he replied quietly.

“Well, you would say that, bloody sadist” Sirius half smiled and resumed kissing and biting Remus’s neck. Remus ran his hands up Sirius’s bare back and let go of worrying about anything else just for a minute. He breathed in deeply and _everything_ was Sirius.


	10. Insight

Professor McGonagall had told Lily to rest for as long as she needed. That the other prefects could cover her duties until she got back on her feet. That it was bound to take some time for the shock to wear off. Lily hadn’t listened of course. Physically, she was perfectly fine. And yes, the incident had shaken her a _little_. But it wasn’t as though she was traumatised or anything. She was _fine_. No reason she couldn’t go back out on patrol.

McGonagall had paired her with Remus of course. Lily had been annoyed by this. She didn’t need a guardian. Or a babysitter. And Remus was in a bit of a state, tripping over his feet and yawning every two seconds. He looked like he hadn't slept in a week, and the full moon was only a day or so away. So she had sent him back to the dorm to get some sleep. He had fought her on it a little, but begrudgingly agreed after her repeated insistence that she was fine.

Yes, she was definitely fine. The fact that her heart was beating uncomfortably fast and her palms were sweating uncontrollably had NOTHING to do with it. It must just be warm in here. Yes, that must be why she was also feeling a little woozy. Her throat felt strangely tight and constricted, but not due to thirst. She had drank a ton of water trying to make that weird dizziness go away to no avail. Now she just felt woozy AND had a very full bladder. Maybe she was coming down with something.

She ducked into the next bathroom that she passed, but after relieving herself she didn’t feel any better. In fact, as she washed her hands she frowned down at them when she realised they were shaking slightly. She looked up into the mirror and realised she was rather pale. Yes, she was definitely coming down with something, she didn’t look well at all. She frowned again and looked at her watch. She only had half an hour left of patrol, she could finish up and then go and get an early night, she’d feel better in the morning, she was sure.

She sighed heavily as she exited the bathroom, her hands already starting to go clammy again even though she’d only just washed them. She walked aimlessly down the  corridor, looking around but not really taking anything in. Her brain felt oddly disconnected. Like there was a slight delay between seeing something and actually processing what it was. A couple of students looked at her in alarm as she passed them and she picked up the pace, heading for another bathroom. Her stomach was squirming uncomfortably now. Was she going to be sick? She definitely wasn’t well...

She burst into the bathroom, flinging the door open so that it banged loudly against the wall. A third year girl who had been applying lipstick in front of the mirror gasped and dropped it in shock.  Lily staggered towards the sink, vaguely aware that she was breathing heavily. As she looked in the mirror she barely recognised herself. Her eyes were open very wide, as though in shock. Her face was deathly pale. She was panting as though she had just run a mile and finding it harder and harder to take the next breath. She was starting to panic now.

She felt a tugging on her elbow and became aware that the third year girl was asking her something. Only odd words registered. “sick...OK?... friends.... hospital wing...”

Lily tried to say that she wasn’t feeling well and she though she might be sick, but the words didn’t come out, only a breathless whimper.

“I... I can’t... I can’t breathe!” Lily choked out. The girl looked terrified, which was panicking Lily even more. The room suddenly lurched sideways and Lily grabbed hold of the sink in terror. A second later she realised that the room hadn’t moved, she had. She had fallen over. She was holding onto the sink for dear life, still trying desperately to take a breath. Her heart was hammering so hard that she was sure something must be wrong. Had someone hit her with another hex? Was she having a heart attack?

She heard distant screaming in the corridor and realised the third year girl had gone. She must be shouting for help. Lily let herself sink to the floor and pushed herself back up against the wall underneath the sink, hugging her knees into her chest. This helped a little, she could breathe again but it was still coming in large gasps.

She didn’t know how long she sat there like that by herself but after a while the door opened again and Peter Pettigrew walked in looking extremely grave. At this point Lily assumed she must be going completely mad, because nothing about any of this made sense. She looked up at him in confusion and he cautiously approached her, crouching down in front of her where she sat.

“Lily” he said calmly, but his expression very serious. “You look like you’re having a panic attack. I’m going to help you, OK?”

Lily simply stared at him blankly for a few seconds, unsure if any of this was real or not. Then she spotted the third year girl loitering in the doorway and realised that she must have brought Peter here, for some reason.

“Can’t... breathe...” She gasped to Peter, pulling her knees tighter into her chest.

“I know” he said, still calm. She didn’t know how anyone could be so calm in a situation like this. “I want you to focus on your breathing OK? Just focus on taking breaths in and out.”

Lily tried to splutter in protest at that. What on earth did he think she was doing? It wasn’t like she wasn’t TRYING to breathe.

“It doesn’t matter how fast. It doesn’t matter if you miss one. Just keep trying. In... And out... In... And out...”

Lily did as he said. At first it had no effect whatsoever, which hit her with a fresh wave of panic. But after a minute or so it because easier to take breaths. And once she found a rhythm she felt some of the tightness in her chest lessen. That made it easier. In and out. That wasn’t so hard. She could do that. In and out. In and out.

“Good” Peter smiled. “You’re doing really well. Just keep going.”

He turned to tell the third year girl it was going to be fine and she could go. Lily panicked again, lunging forward to grab Peter's hand.

“NOT fine” she gasped.

“It’s OK” Peter said in that same reassuring tone, giving her hand a gentle squeeze. “I know you still don’t feel right, but we’ll get there OK? The hardest bit is over. Don’t forget the breath. In and out.”

“In and out...” Lily repeated, nodding.

She continued to take sharp puffs of breath in and out. She vaguely realised this was how pregnant women would breathe when giving birth on TV or in films. After what felt like forever she felt like she was sort of breathing normally again, although the breathing was a little rough and jagged, like after a serious crying session.

“I still don’t feel right” she told Peter desperately.

“OK” Peter didn’t seem concerned by this, which made Lily calm down a little. He clearly knew what he was doing so she trusted him. “Tell me what doesn’t feel right.”

Lily struggled to articulate it. It wasn’t like anything else she had ever felt before. She just felt awful. She felt like she was dying. But she couldn’t say that out loud, she’d sound mad.

“I don’t know...” She said, putting her hands over her face in frustration. She was surprised to find that her cheeks were wet. “My heart is beating too fast” she offered. “Feel sick. Feel dizzy. Shaky” she lifted up her hands to show him that they were still trembling.

“One thing at a time” he said, sitting down opposite her. He took her hand again and placed it on his own chest over his heart. After a couple of second she heard the slow and steady thud of his heartbeat.

“You feel it?” he asked. Lily nodded. She almost wanted to laugh, this was definitely one of the weirdest situations she’d ever been in.

“Focus on the rhythm of it” he told her. “Try not to think about anything else. Just my heartbeat. Tap it out if it helps.”

This sounded like stupid and bizarre advice, but everything else he had done so far had helped, so Lily did as he said. She tapped on her own knee every time she felt his heart beat. The slow rhythm of it was oddly soothing. Again, she didn't know how long they sat there, but the longer they did the calmer she felt.

“How’s your heartbeat now?” Peter asked. Lily realised that she had forgotten about her own heartbeat entirely and she took her hand off Peter's chest, placing it over her own heart instead. She was vastly relieved to discover that it had slowed down considerably.

“Better” she smiled. She realised that she was feeling much less dizzy and sick as well. Who knew that an elevated pulse could do such weird things to you?

“I feel loads better actually” she told him gratefully. “Thank you so much, Peter.”

“No problem” he smiled. Then, after a slight pause “You want to talk about what happened?”

“I don’t really know” Lily admitted, letting her legs slide down to rest flat on the floor. Stretching out felt good after curling herself into such a tight ball for such a long time. “I was on patrol and then I just started feeling sick. Then it just sort of overwhelmed me.”

“Yeah, they can sneak up on you like that” Peter replied with a grim smile. “Not really surprising though, after what happened.”

“But I felt _fine_ ” Lily said in disbelief, shaking her head.

“Did you?” Peter asked. It wasn’t an offhand comment, there was weight behind the question. Lily took a second to really think about it.

“Well... Maybe not _fine_ ” she admitted. “I still HATE that I don’t know who did it. But I am FINE, I’m not hurt. There’s no reason for me to, I don’t know, hide away forever.”

“No, but there’s every reason to not feel totally safe” Peter pointed out. “And you shouldn’t just push it down and ignore it if you feel like that. Because that’s when it bursts out of you when you don’t expect it.”

Lily let that sink in. She had always thought that being afraid wasn’t a good enough reason not to do something. She still did think that, but maybe Peter had a point about letting yourself _feel_ it, rather than just pretending it wasn’t there.

“How do you know so much about this?” she asked him. He laughed.

“I’m the king of panic attacks” he said earnestly. “Between Moony’s bad days and Sirius’s bad days and... my own stuff...Its pretty lucky I was walking by just now, I guess.”

Lily was surprised by this. Well, not so much about Remus or Sirius. But about Peter. He had always seemed so... together.

“I’m not as brave as everyone thinks” he said quietly, in response to her inquisitive look.

“I think you must be incredibly brave if you go through _this_ on a regular basis” Lily told him. She wasn’t just being nice, she genuinely meant it. Peter merely shrugged.

“The guys are actually really great about it, you know. Remus and Sirius, they get it. And James doesn’t, really, but he’s good about it anyway.”

“Yeah, I bet” Lily agreed wistfully. Peter gave her a curious look at this and she changed the subject abruptly.

“Is everything alright with Remus? He looked dead on his feet earlier.”

Peter paused, apparently considering his answer. Lily’s radar went up immediately. Not more bloody secrets, surely? These boys were wrapped up in such a tangled web, it was ridiculous.

“He’s alright. Always gets a bit down around the full moon.”

“Yeah I know, but this seemed like more than that” Lily probed. She knew it was none of her business really, but Remus _was_ her friend. She had a right to be concerned.

“Is...?” she hesitated, unsure whether it was her place to pry. But then she decided to go for broke. The worst he could do was refuse to tell her anything. “Is everything alright with him and Sirius?”

“What do you mean?” Peter replied, a little too quickly.

“You know what I mean” Lily replied, deadpan. Peter looked her in the eye suspiciously.

“How do you know about that?” he asked carefully.

“He told me.”

“Remus? He told you?”

“Well, why wouldn’t he?” Lily huffed, a little offended. “He _is_ my friend.”

“I know, it’s just... it’s a bit of a touchy subject, isn’t it?”

Lily frowned.

“What, because he’s gay, you mean?”

“No, no” Peter shook his head dismissively. “Because of his... condition.”

Lily’s respect for Peter rose even higher in light of his complete nonchalance towards his friend's sexuality. She didn’t really know what he meant though. This evidently showed on her face, because he started to elaborate.

“I mean, you know we don’t care” he gestured between himself and Lily. “But you know the rest of the world isn’t like that. And Remus... He feels like he’s dragging Sirius down with him, by being with him. And Sirius, you know, he’s been through a lot already. I mean, things are bad enough for him after basically sticking two fingers up at his Pureblood heritage.”

“What do you mean?” Lily asked, leaning forward conspiratorially. She knew that obviously it couldn’t have been easy for Sirius, leaving home. But by all accounts his family were the worst kind of people. Surely he was better off now?

“He’s going to be a prime target for the death eaters” Peter said seriously. “If there’s one thing they hate more than weak bloodlines it’s blood traitors. And if they found out he’s with a werewolf...” Peter shook his head grimly.

Lily had to let that sink in. She had always assumed she was at the bottom of the proverbial food chain, being muggle born. But she knew what Peter was saying made sense. Sirius may as well have painted a bullseye on his head. And Remus... Well, no matter whether this  Death Eater thing gained traction or not, his life wasn’t going to be easy.

“What does Sirius think about all this?” she asked, wondering what his side of the story was.

“Says he doesn’t give a shit, of course” Peter shrugged. “I reckon he’s telling the truth as well. He’s always been brave like that. Brave or stupid, one of the two. And he loves Remus more than anything, anyone can see that.”

“Well, good for him” Lily said approvingly.

“Yeah...” Peter sounded a little sceptical. “It’s a _bit_ easier for him to say that though. He’s basically been adopted by the Potters. That’s just about the best place you could possibly be for... whatever’s coming...”

Lily frowned again. She was quite oblivious to all the wizarding genealogy that seemed to be common knowledge to all the purebloods.

“Why?” she asked.

“Well, they used to be in the sacred 28 – the sort of group of the oldest pureblood families” he clarified, in response to Lily’s puzzled look. “But they took a stand against all the prejudice and all that shit. So anyone who is against that knows they have the Potters as an ally. They’re well in with Dumbledore and all that.”

“So they can protect him, you mean?”

“Yeah exactly. He’s basically a second son to them. And James has always seen Sirius as a brother. He said he knew this was coming for years.” He sounded just ever so slightly resentful about this. It wasn’t hard for Lily to understand how Peter must feel a little bit side-lined, what with Sirius and Remus’s relationship, and James and Sirius’s apparently familial bond. Perhaps Peter recognised the jealousy in his own voice, because he went on.

“Its good though, that they took him in. He had a hard life there. He’s loads better now he’s with James.”

Lily could help the snort that came out of her mouth at this. Peter raised an eyebrow.

“Sorry” Lily gained. “I just never thought of Potter as being a stabilising influence in Sirius’s life.”

Peter shrugged again.

“He’s a stabilising influence in _all_ of our lives. I don't get it personally, why he hangs around with a bunch of misfits like us. But that’s just James. He's a good guy. He sees past all the bullshit. That’s rare, you know.”

Lily nodded, looking down at the floor. HOW in the world had she thought James such a bastard for so long? He was quite clearly the most wonderful man on earth. And she had blown it. She had missed her chance.

“Sorry, I know you think he’s a bit of twat” Peter said, misinterpreting her silence. “I mean, I suppose he is when it comes to you. But he means well.”

“No it’s not that” Lily lied. She tried to recall what they’d been talking about before James. Sirius, that was it.

“When you say Sirius had a hard life...” She began, not entirely sure she wanted to know the answer. But she was going to ask it anyway. “I’m guessing you don’t just mean being sent to his room with no dinner?”

Peter hesitated for the second time, which surprised Lily a little, because he’d been quite open with her so far.

“He doesn’t like to talk about it” Peter said quietly. “And I’m not going to go spreading it around. But I’m sure you can imagine.”

Lily nodded, trying very hard NOT to imagine it.

“Is it like that for all pureblood kids?” she asked, wondering if maybe that was why they seemed to have so much anger.

“I think it varies, family to family” Peter told her. “But Sirius always got the worst of it, because he stood up for what he believed in, he didn’t just go along with the bullshit. From what I gather his brother never says a word against any of it and gets along perfectly fine.”

Some sort of red flag went up in Lily’s head, but she wasn’t quite sure why.

“Sirius’s brother...” She frowned, trying to work out what significance that held to her.

“Yeah, Reg. You’ve probably heard him talk about him, he goes off on one about it sometimes when he’s drunk.”

Lily was barely listening anymore. Her whole body had stiffened and the words were echoing around her head.

_“Don’t tell me you’ve gone soft on mudbloods as well, Black”_

“Lily... are you OK?”

Lily felt as though she was hearing Peter for very far away. She gave her head a shake, trying to pull herself together. Her heart had started racing again. Fortunately she didn’t get the weird dizziness with it this time.

“Peter, I think he was there. The night I got attacked” she said, gripping his arm very tightly.

“Who was?” he looked confused.

“Reg! I remember him being there. Someone said something about him going soft on mudbloods.”

“Who said that?”

Lily closed her eyes, scrunching them up in an effort to remember.

“I don’t know” she shook her head finally. “I don't know who actually attacked me but I don’t think it was him. I mean, whoever it was was having a go at him because he WOULDN’T do it.”

Peter was looking very troubled.

“Have you told anyone else about this?” he asked seriously.

“No, I only just remembered” she replied.

“Hmmm” Peter seemed to be deep in thought about this new development. Lily thought she could guess why.

“Do you think we should tell Sirius?” she asked.

Peter frowned.

“I think I might have to” he said slowly. “It isn’t going to be pretty. But we can’t have him finding out from someone else, that would just be worse.”

“I can tell him” Lily offered. “Try and break it to him gently.”

Peter shook his head.

“No, I think I should do it. He’ll be angry about it.”

“OK” Lily agreed. She was sure that she could help, but he was Peter’s friend after all and it was no secret that he was quite prone to violence. Maybe it was better she let him handle it.

“Well” she said, starting to get up. “I guess we should go back to the common room then.”

“Yeah” Peter agreed distractedly. “You alright now?” he added.

“Yeah, fine” she said, stretching her legs. “Thanks. For everything.”

Truthfully she wasn’t entirely sure that she _was_ fine, she definitely still felt rather shaky. But in comparison to how she had felt before Peter came in to the bathroom it was a major improvement.

“It was nothing” he replied kindly, leading the way back into the corridor. They weren’t too far from Gryffindor tower, as Lily hadn’t wanted to stray too far. Maybe she really was more shaken up than she’d realised.

“Listen...” Peter began slowly as they walked. “I’ve probably said a bit more than I should have tonight...”

“Don’t worry, I won’t say anything. About any of it” Lily assured him. “It was nice talking to you though. Maybe we could do it again sometime. Maybe not even on the bathroom floor next time.” She smiled warmly, but Peter looked a bit wary.

“Actually Lily...” He sounded extremely awkward. “Its probably best if we’re not seen together. Probably best you don’t mention tonight to anyone either.”

Lily felt a flare of anger at this dismissal.

“And why is that?” she demanded.

Peter looked extremely uncomfortable, and was scratching the back of his head nervously.

“I just... I can’t be seen with you, that’s all.”

They reached the portrait hole and she watched him disappear through it while she stood outside, feeling angry and hurt. Wasn’t that almost exactly what James had said to her too? ‘I just can’t.’

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Soooo... this was quite an uncomfortable one to write. I do hope that I managed to handle the issue quite tactfully.
> 
> As someone who has spent what probably adds up to many hours in the doctors office describing my panic attacks, I'm well aware of how difficult it is to articulate what it's really like. I did my best though. 
> 
> Also, panic attacks come in all shapes and sizes, so if your experiences are different to this then that's totally OK.
> 
> Also, I tried not to be too blase about Peter just 'fixing' it and Lily recovering like it's no big deal, because I know it doesn't work like that. But at the same time I didn't want it to be some sort of life ruining event, because that's not how I wanted Lily's character to play out.


	11. Brothers

“Sirius, please, can we just stop and think about this for a minute?!” James tried to grab hold of his hand but Sirius wrenched it away, continuing to march down the corridor with purpose.

“Stay out of this, James” Sirius replied in low and dangerous voice. Both Remus and Peter eyed him warily, but it took more than that to scare James Potter.

“Sirius, I really think you should _calm down_ before you talk to him” James insisted, half jogging to keep up with Sirius’s long strides. The irony was not lost on him, that pretty much everyone had been telling HIM to calm down all year. And he knew that when Sirius was in a blind rage like this there wasn’t a thing on earth he could say that would make any difference. But he had to try.

“I am calm” Sirius argued, in a tone that very much suggested otherwise. “Why wouldn’t I be calm? My bastard little brother is going around attacking muggle-borns. After EVERYTHING we talked about. After all this time trying to make him see...” Sirius took a deep breath, that in anyone else would have been a sign of them trying to calm themselves down. But James knew he was really just picking up momentum. “I’m perfectly calm. Why on earth should that make me ANGRY?!”

Sirius punched a suit of armour they were walking past, letting out an angry snarl, all without even slowing down. Peter hastily switched to Remus’s other side, putting as much distance between himself and Sirius as possible. James looked beseechingly at Remus.

“Moony, help me out here” he asked desperately.

“Sirius, Lily said she was quite sure that it _wasn’t_ him who did it” Remus said, with the air of someone trying to reason with a crazy person.

“So he just stood there and did nothing while THEY did it then! It comes to the same thing, doesn’t it?”

Peter made a small sound of disagreement at this and Sirius actually stopped to turn aggressively towards him. James was so surprised he nearly walked into him, and upon seeing his fierce gaze put an arm out to his chest to stop him advancing on Peter, who had shrunk back in terror.

“You got something to say about it, Worms?” Sirius demanded. Peter shook his head furiously.

“That’s what I thought” Sirius muttered darkly, abruptly taking off down the corridor again. James put a brief, comforting hand on Peter’s shoulder and then hopped after Sirius again. He would make him apologise to Wormtail later, once they had all calmed down.

“Sirius, what are you going to do?” Remus asked him worriedly. James already knew the answer to that, which is why he was trying so hard to bring him back to his senses.

“I’m just going to have a little chat with him, that’s all” Sirius replied in an extremely manic tone. “After all of Mother's lessons about manners and decorum you would think the little brat would remember HOW TO CONDUCT HIMSELF IN PUBLIC! Carrying the family name with dignity, indeed!” he scoffed.

James exchanged a concerned look with Remus. Sirius only ever slipped back into that sort of vernacular when he was really unhinged about something, and only ever when it concerned his family. It was like something snapped in his brain and made him revert to his pre-adolescent Pureblood mannerisms.

“Sirius, I _really_ don’t think this is a good idea” James implored him, reaching for his hand again but missing.

“Then fuck off!” Sirius snapped.

James was a little taken aback, but he’d known Sirius for long enough that he could let it slide, in light of how upset Sirius clearly was.

“Pads” James said gently. “I’m on your side. Always. I just don’t want you to do something that can’t be undone.”

Sirius stopped in his tracks again and this time James DID walk into him. When he stepped back, shaking his head to reorientate himself, he saw that Sirius was wearing a rather desperate expression.

“I can’t let this go, mate, I just can’t” Sirius said passionately. “I don't want him to be... I can’t let him...”

“I know” James replied simply. Sirius gave him a nod of understanding and then started walking again.

James didn’t try to reason with him any further, instead falling back to quietly talk to Remus and Peter.

“This is going to get very out of hand very quickly” James told them in a whisper. “I think we ought to let him say what he has to say, but we might gave to drag him out of there if it gets ugly.”

Peter looked absolutely terrified by this prospect, but didn’t disagree. Remus merely nodded grimly.

“Follow my lead, alright?” James said, keeping a wary eye on Sirius, who hadn’t given any indication he could hear them but had started clenching and unflinching his fists as he walked.

“Maybe I should handle it” Remus suggested. “If he gets... you know...”

James was still watching Sirius, who had started muttering to himself. James distinctly heard the words “heir” and “duties” and narrowed his eyes.

“No, I don’t think that’s a good idea Moony” James replied darkly. “He’s going to seriously lay into anyone who tries to stop him.”

“I know” Remus replied, equally seriously. James gave him a grim smile.

“I can take it” James assured him. “Me and him have been beating the crap out of each other since first year.”

Remus looked like he wanted to argue, but all four of them stopped as Sirius finally reached the entrance to the Slytherin common room.

“REGULUS BLACK” he bellowed at the blank stretch of wall, behind which they knew the doorway was hidden. “GET YOUR SPINELESS, WORTHLESS ARSE OUT HERE NOW!”

“What the devil do you mean by it, boy?” a portrait of a surly old man behind them asked in a scandalized tone. “You four do not belong to my house, I must ask you to leave at once.”

“REGULUS BLACK” Sirius yelled again, ignoring him completely. “I KNOW YOU’RE IN THERE. BIG BROTHER WANTS A WORD WITH YOU.”

“Ah, so you’re one of the Black boys eh?” The portrait asked with interest. “My own family are distantly related you know. How curious, that you should belong to another house...”

“Fuck off, Selwyn!” Sirius barked at the portrait without turning around. James exchanged another uneasy look with Remus. It was very unnerving when his purebloodedness came out like that.

“Well I never” the man called Selwyn sounded scandalized. “They do say of course that the eldest of the Black boys has lost his way. I suppose I ought not to be surprised...”

“Sirius wants to speak to his brother” Remus told Selwyn. “Is there any way we can get him out here?”

Selwyn looked disdainfully down at them all for a moment or two.

“Suppose there was” he eyed Sirius suspiciously. “To what end?”

Sirius turned around at this, standing up straight with his chin jutted out slightly, an incredibly haughty expression on his face.

“This is a family matter” he said coldly. “One which I assure you does not concern yourself or anyone else. I trust that you would not begrudge us our discretion.”

Selwyn looked at him appraisingly. Sirius drew himself up even higher.

“Or perhaps you would prefer I burst into your precious common room, and tell everyone of your impertinence. In the face of the heir of the house of Black, no less.”

James was getting seriously creeped out now. Sirius sounded like _Snape._

“Word is that the eldest Black boy was disinherited” Selwyn argued, sounding just as haughty as Sirius. “You boy, are not the Black heir.”

“But _he_ is” Sirius pointed out. Selwyn frowned, evidently having no argument for that. James was actually slightly impressed by the craftiness of Sirius’s argument. Maybe the man really _did_ have a bit of Slytherin in him. That thought creeped James out even more.

Selwyn walked sideways out of his portrait and James assumed he had gone into another one somewhere inside the common room. Sirius turned back around to face the blank wall expectantly. James felt as though he should say something to him, but he had no idea what. That whole exchange had been very uncomfortable, and James knew it was about to get even more so.

After a minute or two of tense silence a doorway appeared in the wall and Regulus entered the corridor, looking extremely wary. His eyes darted quickly between all four of them and then up to Selwyn’s portrait, who was once again watching them.

“What do you want?” Regulus asked Sirius slowly.

“Let’s cut the shit, shall we, Reg?” Sirius replied in a no-nonsense tone. “You know why I’m here. You know what you did. And _I_ know what you did.”

“I haven’t done anything” Regulus replied, in a would-be casual voice.

“EXACTLY” Sirius bellowed. “You let your goons attack an innocent girl while you stood there and did _nothing!”_

“What would you have me do?!” Regulus argued, flaring up. “Take on Avery and Mulciber myself? In defence of a _mudblood?”_

James filed away those names, his eyes narrowed, but didn’t dare interrupt the two brothers, who were now in a full blown row.

“How DARE you say that disgusting word to me?”

“How dare YOU, Sirius? Do you have ANY idea how much our family name has been dragged through the mud because of YOU? Any authority I ever had over the others is GONE.”

“And so it should be! You’re not a bloody king to these people Regulus, no matter what Mother would have you believe! Are you really sucked so far into that world that you’re starting to believe this shit?”

“YOU JUST DON’T GET IT, DO YOU?” Regulus sounded quite deranged. “This isn’t about what you or I believe! This is BIGGER than that! You ALWAYS do this, you refuse to look beyond your own selfish agenda!”

“And YOU always do THIS! You act like you don’t have a choice in any of this just because you’re a Black, but that doesn’t mean SHIT, Reg! Look!”

To James’s horror Sirius ran the tip of his wand across his palm, leaving a deep cut behind it. Blood immediately started gushing out of the wound.

“LOOK AT IT!” Sirius sounded deranged too. Regulus was trying to look away but Sirius was waving his bloody hand about an inch from the boy’s face.

“I’m a Black, but my blood is still red, just like everyone else’s!”

Remus was frozen on the spot, clearly in shock, his mouth slightly open. James stepped towards Sirius, putting a hand on his shoulder.

“Mate, that’s enough-“

“FUCK OFF, POTTER” Sirius snarled. James actually did step back in surprise. “This is a family matter!”

“I’M YOUR FAMILY” James yelled in response. This seemed to snap Sirius out of it slightly and he blinked confusedly.

“He's right” Regulus sneered. “You and I aren’t family anymore, Sirius. You don’t get to pass judgement on my actions.”

“Like hell I don’t!” Sirius retorted, snatching a handkerchief that Peter was holding out to him and wrapping his hand in it. “Even putting aside all the other bullshit, you let that poor girl be hospitalised, Regulus. No matter what the reason for the attack or who did it, YOU LET THAT HAPPEN. You were raised better than that!”

“By _our_ parents?” Regulus scoffed incredulously.

“NO, BY ME!”

A ringing silence followed that, in which Sirius looked furious and Regulus looked slightly ashamed. The moment was short lived though, as Regulus’s expression turned to anger again.

“Yes and a fine job you did too, raising me!” Regulus spat. “Nine years of getting me into trouble and then you just pissed off! Replaced me with _him_ ” Regulus gestured towards James, who felt very uncomfortable being in the middle of this all of a sudden.

“So what now, Reg?” Sirius asked coldly. “Tell me, what exactly IS the grand plan? What, are you going to join the death eaters? To bring some _honour_ back to the family name?”

“Well, if I did, it would be none of _your_ concern, I’m sure. Unless it became an inconvenience to you or your _friends_ somehow” Regulus was looking at Sirius like he truly hated him. The sentiment was mirrored on Sirius’s face.

“You disgust me” Sirius said icily. “I’m ashamed to call you my brother.”

“So then DON’T” Regulus replied. “Believe you me, _brother_ , you disgust me in equal measure. As untouchable as I’m sure you think you are, word of your degenerate behaviour has reached my ears.” Regulus gave Remus a pointed look at this, and James saw him stiffen.

Sirius narrowed his eyes even further, advancing towards Regulus. James instinctively followed him, ready to pull him back, but Sirius made no move to hit Regulus. He simply edged his face closer to Regulus’s in a menacing manner. Regulus, to James’s surprise, held his ground, continuing to look angrily back. When Sirius spoke, his voice was more dangerous than James had ever heard it.

“If you value your life, Regulus, you ought to stop right there. I won’t warn you a second time.”

There was a long silence in which the two brothers sized each other up. Stood face to face like this, wearing matching expressions, the resemblance between them was striking. It was almost like Sirius was looking at a slightly younger (and slightly more well groomed) version of himself. James didn’t often think of Sirius in the whole ‘heir to the house of Black’ context, but he suddenly became aware that this boy stood in front of them, wearing his Slytherin robes and talking in that aristocratic, well spoken manner... that could just have easily been Sirius. James felt a sudden wave of sympathy for Regulus.

“Sirius, I think that’s enough” James said quietly. “We should go.”

“I am doing you a favour, by keeping this secret, I hope you remember that” Regulus said to Sirius, ignoring James entirely. Sirius sputtered in disbelief.

“Please. Don't think I don't know how badly it would affect your reputation were it to get out” Sirius replied dismissively. “This is as much about saving your own skin as anything else. As usual.”

“Think what you want” Regulus scowled. “You always were impossible to reason with.” He looked to Remus. “You have my sympathies” he said flatly.

“HOW on earth can you make out that _I’m_ the unreasonable one here?” Sirius demanded. “You KNOW right from wrong, Regulus, I KNOW you do. You could be so much more than... This...” Sirius sounded less angry and more simply sad towards the end of that sentence. He was now looking at Regulus with bitter disappointment.

“Well, I suppose we'll never know, will we?” Regulus replied, his voice emotionless but his eyes betraying the hurt he obviously felt. “You forfeited any influence you had over my life when you left me there.”

With that, he turned around and disappeared behind the wall, back into the common room. Sirius stood staring at the spot where Regulus had been stood with a hardened expression on his face.

“Pads” James put a gentle hand on his shoulder and Sirius flinched slightly in surprise, as though he’d forgotten the others were there. His expression softened when he looked around at them.

“Come on, let’s go” James said, jerking his head towards the staircase at the end of the corridor. Sirius nodded mutely. Remus took his hand as they started to walk and James noted that he didn’t pull it away, but he didn’t really hold Remus’s hand back either. He looked lost in deep thought as they made their way back up to Gryffindor tower.

They couldn’t get a single word out of him all night. James, Remus and Peter all did their best to snap him out of it, but Sirius merely stood by the window in the dorm, smoking endlessly and slowly working his way through the firewhisky left over from Wormtail’s birthday with that same hardened expression on his face.

Some time around the early hours of the morning he sank to the floor underneath the window, half sitting, half lying on the floor, slumped against the wall. He was clearly very drunk. James sighed and put down the book he had been reading, mentally preparing himself to haul Sirius up and drag him to his bed. Remus got there first however, quietly saying something in a soothing tone and gently hoisting him up, propping him with his shoulder. As they passed by James’s bed he heard Sirius mutter “ _it’s all my fault...”_

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 'Pureblood' Sirius is my new favourite thing <3
> 
> Also, the concept that it's actually Sirius who first puts the idea in Regulus's head about joining the death eaters gives me chills.


	12. Finally

Lily was back out on prefect patrol for the first time since that weird day a couple of weeks ago. She had spoken to both Madam Pomfrey and Professor McGonagall about the incident, who had advised her to take a bit of time off. Fortunately nothing like that horrible surge of panic had happened since, and she was feeling quite alright about it all now. Being able to remember Regulus having been there (and reporting this to McGonagall, of course) had greatly eased her mind about the whole thing. It was certainly better than not being able to remember ANYTHING, and she actually took comfort in knowing that he had stood up for her. Regulus had refused to speak up about who had actually done it of course, and was consequently in weekly detentions for the rest of the year. But they couldn’t MAKE him say who it was. And since Lily hadn’t _really_ been that badly hurt McGonagall had had to let the matter slide. After all, students hexed each other in the corridors every day. This attack had been a little more serious than that, obviously, but there was no lasting damage. She had only spent one night in the hospital wing.

Lily WAS however absolutely livid at James Potter and his entire crew. Beyond a perfunctory conversation with Remus about her taking a couple of weeks off of prefect duty, all four of them had gone back to completely ignoring her – James himself even going so far as to turn around and walk the other way when he saw her coming. As if the humiliation of him running off after she tried to kiss him wasn’t bad enough. Now he was actively running away to avoid having to so much as look at her. And Peter too. After that incredibly meaningful conversation they had had in the bathroom, he was now acting like nothing whatsoever had happened. Responding simply with a nod and avoiding her gaze whenever she said hello to him.

So all in all, she was actually in a pretty bad mood. It was bloody typical really. Today was supposed to be a good day. She was supposed to feel relieved at getting back to normal. Accomplished, because she was picking up her prefect duties again. As it was, she was just irritable.

She wandered aimlessly through the corridors, purposefully looking down at the floor and not around. She was not in the mood to tell anyone off for petty rule breaking, and just wanted to get through the next hour of her prefect patrol duty without having to actually speak to anyone. She was also painfully aware that the marauders were out here somewhere, up to no good probably. And she certainly didn’t want to tangle with them right now. So she steered well clear of their usual haunts (the astronomy tower, Slughorn’s potion stores, that third floor corridor where they inexplicably congregated sometimes) and figured with a bit of luck she could avoid them altogether tonight.

Luck however was not on Lily’s side tonight, as she turned a corner quite sharply and bumped into none other than Sirius Black.

“Ouch – sorry, I .... oh, it’s you...” She frowned at Sirius, who had lost his balance slightly in the collision and was gripping her shoulder to steady himself. She spotted a nearly-empty bottle of some sort of clear alcohol in his other hand and scowled more deeply. Great, now she either had to write him up or walk away and lose any modicum of authority she had over any of the boys in her house. She was weighing up these two equally unattractive options when Sirius finally released her shoulder and looked at her in great confusion, swaying slightly on the spot.

“Evans? What...? Why are you out here by yourself?” he asked, slurring his words. “Where’s Moony? I mean, Remus. Thought Remus was with you.”

“What? Sirius, what are you talking about? And WHAT have you been drinking?” she took the bottle from his hands and gave it a tentative sniff. It was gin. “Where on earth did you get this?”

“REMUS” Sirius said loudly and slowly, ignoring the question. “Where is he?”

“I don’t know Sirius” Lily told him firmly, but she getting more confused by the minute. She peered down the corridor behind him. “Are you out here by yourself? Where’s Peter? And”, she hesitated for a split second, “James?”

Sirius waved a hand airily, presumably to indicate he didn’t know, or didn’t care. He was swaying again. Lily looked him up and down, noticing that his knuckles were split on his right hand.

“Have you been fighting?” she asked, sternly. Sirius to her surprise laughed in response to this.

“Evans you worry too much” he said casually, and pulled a packet of cigarettes out of his pocket. He fumbled with the box, trying to get one out, but Lily snatched it from him.

“Sirius, I’m a _prefect_ ” she reminded him. “And I’m on duty right now. I should report you for this.”

“So do it then” he muttered darkly.

“Excuse me?!” Lily demanded angrily.

“I said DO IT!” he yelled. “FUCK, I don’t give a SHIT! I don’t give a shit about ANYTHING!” he turned around and punched the wall behind him. Lily jumped backwards and gasped in shock,  dropping the gin bottle which smashed on the floor. Sirius turned back to her and she stepped backwards further, terrified.

“Don't!” she cried as he advanced towards her, his knuckles now dripping with blood. But to her surprise he didn’t look angry at all. In fact, there were tears starting to spill from his eyes.

“I just want Moony...” he whined, starting to sob. Lily stood, frozen in shock. “Where is he?” Sirius whispered, reaching Lily and putting his non-bleeding hand gently on her shoulder again. She stared at him, bewildered.

“I’m sorry Sirius, I don’t know” she whispered back.

Sirius released her and put both of his hands over his face, sobbing as though his heart was breaking. Lily didn’t know what to do. She felt like she ought to give him a hug, but she wasn’t sure if that was entirely appropriate, given this weird stand off she was in with the marauders. She was also still slightly afraid he might have another violent outburst. However the longer she stood there watching him weep the more sorry for him she felt. After a couple of minutes she stepped towards him and tentatively put a hand on his back. He didn’t react at all, so she closed the distance between them, wrapping her arms gently around his shoulders, the broken glass crunching under her feet. He didn’t move at first, but after a while he wrapped his arms around her waist, burying his face in her inner shoulder. He continued to cry, but his sobs became less dramatic.

“Sirius, what’s wrong?” she asked quietly.

“Everyone’s leaving me” Sirius replied, his voice muffled. Lily backed away a little to give him some air, but he clung tightly to her, swaying dangerously on the spot. Lily stumbled with the effort of keeping them both upright.

“All leaving” he said again, shaking his head. “First I lost Reg. But that was my own fucking fault so I can’t really complain about that, can I? But I really did try, you know. I wanted him to be better. But I let him down. I failed him...”

“Sirius, I don’t understand....”

“And now Alphard” he whined. “Alphard  has gone and fucking left me as well. I know he didn’t _mean_ to. He just bloody went and died, didn’t he? Not his fault I guess. And now there’s only two of us!”

“ _Sirius..._ ” Lily said consolingly, giving him a gentle squeeze. “Are you saying one of your relatives has gone? One that you liked?” He also seemed to be very upset about his brother for some reason. Lily thought she probably knew what was behind that. She had to assume that Peter had told him what Lily had remembered, and that Sirius had confronted Regulus about it. Evidently it had not gone well.

Sirius nodded.

“And now just two” he whispered, sounding distraught.

“Sirius, I don’t know what you mean” Lily said gently. “Two of what?”

“Blacks!” Sirius cried desperately. “Two good Blacks! Andromeda Black and Sirius Black. And _I’m_ not even that good. So really it’s like one and a half” his voice started to tremble as he was getting worked up again. “One and a half good Blacks” he squeaked. “And Reg will never... he’s not... I tried...”

“I’m sorry” she said quietly, rubbing circles on his back. The action seemed to calm him down, as his sobs slowly subsided again.

 “Lily, please tell me where Remus is” he asked after a long pause.

“Why do you keep asking me that?” she asked him. “I haven’t seen him, Sirius.”

Sirius finally let her go, wriggling out of her arms and stumbling towards an alcove in the corridor wall. He sat down on the ledge, leaning his head back against the wall looking up at the ceiling.

“He lied to me then” he said flatly, staring blankly upwards. “Said he was with you. Prefect stuff.”

Lily frowned and took a seat next to him.

“Why would he do that?” she asked.

“S'probably being moody again. _Moody_ Moony. He’s been all ‘ _no-one understands me'_ since... well, for a while, anyway.”

Lily didn’t quite know what to say to that. She looked at Sirius, who was flexing the split knuckles on his hand with a grimace on his tear-tracked face. It was quite a pathetic sight. She wordlessly handed him his cigarettes back. He took them, looking surprised, but then shot her a small smile. For possibly the first time, Lily understood why the girls in her class all swooned over him. It was a lovely smile. Sirius had a very expressive face, and it was awful seeing him upset.

He pulled a cigarette out of the packet with his mouth and offered Lily one. She looked around furtively. They were certainly down the rabbit hole, and she felt like this was some sort of bonding moment between them. Sirius’s smile broadened to a delighted grin as she took one and leant over while he lit it for her with the tip of his wand.

“Evans!” he said in a scandalized tone before taking a deep inhale of his own. “You’re a prefect, you know!”

Lily grinned mischievously.

“You know, you boys think you know _all_ about me, but you don’t.”

“Apparently not” he chuckled.

In fact, this was the fourth time in her life that Lily had smoked. She and Marlene had shared their first one back in third year. It had been awful and she’d wanted to throw up afterwards. Then she had dated a muggle boy who smoked in the summer of fifth year, and had one of his one time. It had been slightly more bearable than the first time, but still quite unpleasant. And then she, Dorcas and Marlene had gone to the Hogs Head on the first Hogsmeade weekend last year just before Christmas and gotten quite drunk and smoked a full packet between them. That time had been quite enjoyable. Evidently it was the alcohol that made it so, because the cigarette she was smoking now tasted disgusting, and was hitting the back of her throat in a very harsh manner. Still, she persevered, not wanting to waste this opportunity for an insight into the marauders’ life. Even if it wasn’t quite the particular marauder she was most interested in.

“Sirius...?” she began tentatively. “Do you know about... Remus’s... number?”

The question seemed to sober Sirius up considerably. He sat up straight and eyed Lily suspiciously, who immediately regretted bringing it up, but she held her ground, looking back at him seriously.

“687” he said carefully. She nodded. “How do you know about that?” he asked sharply.

“He showed me” she replied.

“He what?!”

“Yeah, he just showed it to me. We were having a bit of a row and he was trying to prove a point” she shrugged and took a long drag on her cigarette.

“He never shows anyone” Sirius said, ruffling up his hair in a very James-like manner.

“Yeah, well, I can see why” she replied darkly.

“No, Lily” he said seriously. “He never shows _anyone_. I’ve only seen it because he has to redo the charm after every transformation.”

Lily scowled as she watched Sirius flex his knuckles again. He looked agitated.

“So you’ve never talked about it?” she asked him. He replied with a humourless laugh.

“Have you ever _tried_ talking to him about it? He’ll bite your head off then disappear for three days. Case in fucking point” he gestured around the deserted corridor, indicating Remus’s absence.

There was a pause, in which Lily thought about everything that Peter had told her about the difficulties in Sirius and Remus's relationship. She thought about the defeated look on Remus’s face when he was trying to explain that she’d be better off without him. She thought about how he and Sirius probably had that same argument on a frequent basis, and how it must break Sirius’s heart to see that look on his face. She also thought about how awful it must be for Remus, being constantly torn between wanting to be with Sirius but wanting to protect Sirius from himself and the constant struggles he faced.

“I don’t think any of us can even begin to imagine what he’s been through” she said quietly. “It’s hard for him, you know?”

“It’s hard for me too” Sirius whispered, putting a hand over his eyes. Lily could tell he was trying not to cry again. She put an arm around his shoulders, pulling him almost headlock-like into a hug.

“That’s why you need friends. And gin” she smiled.

Sirius chuckled again.

“You’re alright Evans, you know” he said, patting her knee. “I might just let you go out with Prongs, yet.”

Lily’s smile faltered.

“Well, it’s nice to have your seal of approval, Black” she said, releasing him. “But at this point it doesn’t really matter anymore, does it?”

Sirius shook his head like a dog, making his mussed up hair all fall elegantly back into place. Lily laughed a little at this, but Sirius took no notice and leant back against the wall serenely.

“Don’t know what you’re on about” he said in a dignified tone. “My seal of approval ALWAYS matters. _I_ am the most important person in his life, so if you’re not in with me then you’ve got no chance with him.”

“That’s not what I meant” Lily replied flatly. “It doesn’t matter anymore because he doesn’t want to go out with me anymore...”

Sirius turned his head to look at her.

“What?” he asked, frowning in confusion.

Lily shrugged and scowled moodily at the ground. She didn’t want to say it again.

“Of course he wants to go out with you!” Sirius replied indignantly. “Why would you even say that? Christ, you should see the way he’s been moping around for practically the whole year.”

“Then why did he…?” Lily felt herself blush. She didn’t particularly want to tell Sirius about him rejecting her kiss. She pulled herself together quickly, as Sirius was looking at her with interest, and stubbed out her cigarette on the floor.

“Why won’t he even speak to me?” she demanded, looking back at him.

Sirius leant forward again and looked at her appraisingly. He absent-mindedly pulled out another cigarette and lit it while still looking seriously at her. She raised an eyebrow at this, as he'd only just finished the last one. Evidently he needed some sort of fortification for whatever he was about to say.

Look” he said, letting out a long exhale and gesturing in a very business-like manner. “We sort of made a pact to keep you out of this but...” He shook his head. “I can’t have you going around thinking he’s gone off you. There’s a LOT of reasons for you to be pissed off at James, but that shouldn’t be one of them.”

Lily leaned forward, listening carefully. Sirius was still slurring the edges of his words slightly, but he looked quite in control of his faculties. Certainly more so than he had half an hour ago when they had started this conversation.

“Fuck, it was all my fault” Sirius told her, shaking his head again. “I did something stupid Lily. I sent Snape in after Remus at the full moon.”

“You did WHAT?”

Sirius grimaced, bringing the cigarette up to his mouth and taking a long drag.

“I know. I’m a fucking arsehole. I told you, right? One and half good Blacks. Maybe it’s really more like one and a quarter...”

“What happened, Sirius?!”

“Oh don’t worry, he’s alright” Sirius scowled. “James got him out of there. But he was threatening to tell everyone about Remus and have all of us expelled.”

Lily didn’t quite know what to say to that. Part of her rather thought they (well, Sirius at least) might deserve it, after pulling a stunt like that. She waited for him to go on.

“But you know James” Sirius smiled grimly. “He'd protect us to the ends of the earth. And maybe I don’t deserve it, but Remus does, you know? This whole thing was nothing to do with him, he didn’t even find out until about a week after the fact. We couldn’t let him get chucked out of school.” Sirius sighed deeply. “So James said he'd do anything, for Snape to keep his mouth shut. And Snape said OK, so long as James never spoke to you ever again.”

Lily felt her mouth fall open in shock. So THAT’S what this whole thing had been about. The shock was short lived though and rapidly replaced by anger. Anger at Severus, for treating her as though she were some sort of object, or possession of his. For thinking he still had any claim over her whatsoever. At James, for going along with such a stupid idea. At all of the stupid marauders for keeping this from her, and letting her think all sorts about why they wouldn’t speak to her. At Sirius for getting all of them into this in the first place. She remembered the girls excitedly regaling the tale of James walking into the common room and punching Sirius and found that she had never before had more sympathy for the boy. In fact, she could quite happily punch Sirius herself. All the shit she’d been through this year! And for what?! Because of their stupid feud with stupid fucking Snape?!

“I know, it’s fucking stupid right- ARGH!” Sirius cried out in a mixture of surprise and pain as Lily punched him in the arm as hard as she could. He actually dropped his cigarette on the floor upon impact and flinched away from her, as though expecting another hit to follow. But Lily just scowled at him threateningly, flexing the fingers on her hand which were now throbbing painfully from how hard she had hit him.

“Jesus, _sorry_ , look, we should have told- OW STOP THAT!” Sirius squirmed away from her as she hit him again in the exact same spot, falling off the ledge and onto his knees on the floor. He scrambled clumsily away from her looking terrified, but Lily was too angry to find the situation funny. She stood up and towered over him.

“Are you fucking _serious_?” she demanded. “DON’T answer that!” she added quickly, as he opened his mouth. “This _whole_ time?! This whole time I thought he HATED me! And it’s all _your_ fault?! What?!”

Sirius looked very confused and was looking around the corridor as though suddenly lost.

“Sorry” he said breathlessly. “I’m just having serious deja-vu right now. Has anyone ever told you that you and James are exactly alike?”

“I’M NOT JOKING RIGHT NOW SIRIUS!”

“I’m not either” he said desperately. “I mean it!”

“Shut up!” she interrupted loudly. “Just, shut up! You’re an idiot. You’re all fucking idiots. I can’t believe none of you were going to TELL me. I mean, what were you thinking?”

Sirius opened his mouth to respond and she cut across him again.

“NO, shut up!” She turned away from him trying to martial her thoughts. She heard him shuffling behind her and turned around abruptly again to see him reaching across the floor for his cigarette. He froze, looking like a deer in headlights. Lily rolled her eyes. She walked over and picked it up off the floor, holding it out to him. He looked at it warily, as though worried this was some sort of trap.

“You’re going to tell me EXACTLY what happened” Lily told him firmly. Sirius nodded and timidly took the cigarette back from her.

 

-

 

Lily and Sirius sat cross-legged facing each other on the floor while Sirius told her in painstaking detail everything that had happened the night that Severus had gone down the tunnel and anything significant that had happened afterwards. There were a few parts of the story that didn’t entirely make sense to Lily yet, but she sat patiently and listened, grateful for the wealth of information Sirius was providing after so long being kept in the dark. This was oddly reminiscent of the conversation she had had with Peter, sat on the bathroom floor, and she wondered vaguely if this was how she was destined to have ALL of her serious conversations with the boys. Eventually Sirius seemed to come to the end of his story and tapered off after describing a particularly nasty exchange between Severus, James and himself outside the hospital wing. Lily sat in stunned silence for a few moments.

“Snape really said all those awful things to you?” she asked after a while. Sirius responded with a grim smile.

“Actually, I toned it down a little. What he actually said would make your stomach turn.”

Lily frowned. She wasn’t sure she really needed the specifics, but she also didn’t want to be treated as someone too delicate to handle the harsh reality.

“What did he really say, Sirius?” she asked seriously.

“I’m not repeating it” Sirius scowled.

“You bloody are” Lily argued. “I told you to tell me EVERYTHING.”

Sirius looked a little pained for a moment. He exhaled a long puff of smoke looking defeated and muttered something quietly. Lily caught the words ‘Fuck boy’.

“What?” Lily demanded, her eyes narrowed and her hands curling into fists.

“ _I’ll have the ministry put your fuck boy down!_ ” Sirius spat, looking disgusted. “Or something to that effect, anyway.”

Lily gasped.

“But... He couldn’t really do that... could he?” She said quietly. She was expecting Sirius to say of course not, to say that he was just trying to hurt them. Just saying it to establish authority. To her horror, Sirius did not. He had this terrible, hollow look in his eyes as he took another long drag of his cigarette, his hand trembling (with anger or fear, Lily couldn’t tell.)

“It's not impossible” Sirius said, his voice sounding as cold as his expression. “For someone well connected – and believe me, old Snivellus is pretty well connected these days. Making someone without status disappear isn’t really that hard.”

“You’ve seen it happen before?” Lily asked, her voice a whisper. Sirius ignored the question.

“And disappearing a werewolf... well, that’s almost _easy_. All he’d really have to do is convince the creatures department that Remus tried to kill or turn him. It’s not like werewolves exactly have _rights_ , is it? It would be perfectly legal, and everything.”

Lily didn’t really know anything much about wizarding legislation, but given all she knew about the treatment of werewolves by the ministry it wasn’t hard to imagine that Remus wouldn’t be given a fair trial. But to go as far as the _death penalty..._ that really DID make her stomach turn.

“But even Snape wouldn’t actually do that to another person, surely?” Lily said desperately. She didn’t understand how Sirius seemed so... resigned to the whole thing. It was tantamount to murder. It was completely out of order.

“Well that’s it, isn’t it?” Sirius replied darkly. “Snape doesn’t really think of him as a person. Neither does the ministry.”

Lily had a sudden flashback of when Remus had shown her his tattoo. What he had said about Snape trying to make him show it. ‘ _To show me I’m nothing more than an animal...’_

“I HATE this!” Lily burst out. “I hate all of it. And I hate YOU, for keeping it all from me!” She directed this to Sirius, but when she said ‘you’ she was actually referring to all four of the boys, including Remus himself. Sirius evidently understood this as he gave her a sort of grim smile.

“I know, mate, we're sorry” he said, offering her the half-smoked cigarette. She accepted it, smiling a little in spite of herself. He had called her ‘mate’, so casually. Like they were old friends.

“Remus and Peter wanted to tell you right from the off, if that helps at all” Sirius added. “Remus actually told me he nearly cracked once, and had to tell you about me and him to stop you from asking questions.”

Lily remembered this, how he had blurted it out seemingly out of the blue and it had distracted her completely.

“Devious little shit, isn’t he?” Lily smirked, taking a drag of the cigarette. She sort of understood now why Sirius smoked so much. It made difficult conversations like this much easier, having something to do with your hands and being able to surround them with a slight haze of smoke. There was also something gratifyingly adult about it.

“Yeah, that’s my Moony” Sirius smiled fondly.

“You’ll never let anything happen to him, right?” she asked seriously. “You and James?”

“Course not” Sirius said, squaring his shoulders. “I’d lay down my own life first, before I let the ministry take him.” He said it with such conviction that Lily didn’t doubt this one bit. It made her feel the slightest bit better about the whole thing.

“And even if you don’t trust me” Sirius shrugged. “If there’s one person you can really count on it's Prongs. I get the sense you’re starting to see that.” He said this rather pointedly, which made Lily blush ever so slightly.

“Yeah well...” She said sheepishly. “Never mind that. I DO trust you” she told Sirius earnestly. “Mate” she added, with a grin. Sirius looked rather pleased at this.

Lily stubbed out the cigarette on the floor and then looked back to Sirius, who was still looking rather gratified, and was fluffing his hair up with one hand.

“You look like James, when you do that” she told him.

“Pfft, he wishes” Sirius smirked. “James Potter could only dream of being as cool as me. I’d shave my head if I had a mop like his!”

“It’s not that bad!” Lily laughed.

“It bloody is” Sirius grinned. “The way he always messes it up even more. As if that were even possible” he laughed and Lily joined in, unable to help herself.

“I tell you what, Lils” he said, shaking his head. “You were right about one thing all these years. He’s an absolute tit, isn’t he?”

“Yeah” she agreed, grinning. “But it’s sort of in a good way, isn’t it?”

“It's definitely in a good way” Sirius smiled.

“Why do you call him Prongs?” Lily asked thoughtfully. Sirius looked awkward.

“NOT more fucking secrets” she said, with a small flare of annoyance. “ _Come on...”_

Sirius eyed her appraisingly. She frowned at him.

“Look, Lily... Remus wouldn’t have shown you his ministry tattoo if he didn’t _really_ trust you. So I WANT to trust you” Sirius said slowly and seriously. “But if you _really_ want me to answer that... I need to know that you’re one of us. That you’re with us, no matter what. And you cant ever tell another soul. You understand?”

“Are you asking me to be a marauder?” Lily asked excitedly.

“I’m telling you that if you want to be, you have to take that responsibility seriously” Sirius said. Lily was quite surprised by how grave he sounded. Whatever he was about to tell her, surely it couldn’t be worse than Remus’s lycanthropy?

“I mean no matter what happens with you and James. No matter if you and Snape ever become friends again. This is our... well, our second biggest secret, after Moony’s furry little problem. But even less people know about this one. There's only four people in the entire world that know, and you’ll be number five. And I hope you’ll understand why it’s so important.”

“Sirius” Lily frowned. “Have I not proven to you that you can trust me?”

“Yeah” Sirius replied looking pensive. “I suppose you have.”

A second later, Lily’s jaw dropped open as Sirius turned into a large, black dog, right in front of her.

“You... you...?” Lily was dumbstruck. The dog wagged it’s tail and padded over to her, burrowing his face into her hands until she stroked his head.

“Pads...” She said quietly. “I’ve heard them call you that... so James too? _Prongs..._ something with horns? But how!?” she was finally starting to wrap her mind around it, but this really raised a whole load more questions than it answered. “How in the world did you do this? Do you even _know_ how illegal this is? Why would you...?”

Lily stopped speaking, staring slightly into the distance. She remembered Sirius recounting the night that Snape had gone down the tunnel. How Sirius had been so nonchalant about himself, James and Peter bring in the shack. ‘Like always’, he had said. She recalled how he had described holding Remus back while James and Severus got away. She had been confused at the time as to how the boys kept themselves safe from the wolf. How it was they were able to be with him when he transformed.

She looked down at the dog, whose face she was holding between her hands. He was looking expectantly up at her.

“You did this for _him_?” Lily asked. Her voice came out as a whisper. She really half thought she might cry. She had never heard of anything so selfless. So caring. So wonderful. The dog nodded its head. Lily let out a choked sort of laugh. It was a strange action to see a dog do.

“You did it for him” she repeated, her voice full of emotion. “Sirius, that’s... he’s _so_ lucky to have you.”

Sirius transformed back into himself, his face still in between her hands, on his hands and knees in front of her. Lily released him hastily. Sirius let out a bark like laugh, that left Lily vaguely wondering if him being an animagus had made him more dog-like, or if he had always been that way and that’s why his form was a dog,

“Tell _him_ that sometime, would you?” Sirius resumed his cross-legged position opposite her. “And it’s actually antlers, not horns.”

“Antlers...” Lily repeated faintly, trying to imagine it.

“Yeah. Peter’s a rat, by the way. Useful, that one. He can get in anywhere.”

“Peter too?!”

“Yeah of course.”

Lily felt like her head was spinning. There had been far too much to take in tonight. She took a deep breath and let it out slowly. Sirius looked mildly amused and offered her another cigarette. She shook her head.

“No, thanks” she said rather breathlessly. “Bloody hell, wish I hadn’t smashed that gin bottle. I could do with a drink, after all that...”

Sirius chuckled.

“If there’s one thing you can always count on its the marauder’s headquarters being well stocked” he told her. “Remus has taken quite a liking to muggle alcohol this past year. He tries to hide it from me but I know where he keeps his stash. We can go and raid it if you like?”

“ _That’s_ where you got the gin” she smiled.

“Yeah. He’ll go spare at me later for that but... well, he shouldn’t have pissed off, should he?” Sirius shrugged. Lily suddenly remembered how this encounter had started and narrowed her eyes, scrutinizing him.

“Are you alright?” she asked. He paused before answering, but not because he looked like he didn’t want to answer. He looked like he was really thinking about it.

“I think, all in all... I am” he said, absent mindedly rubbing at the dried blood on his knuckles.  “I think it’s gonna be alright. Now we’ve got you on side.”

“I think so too” Lily agreed, pulling his hand away to stop him irritating the wounds and making himself bleed again. “Let’s go and tell the others, shall we?”


	13. Resolution

James knew something was up when he got back to the dorm. He’d gotten back just barely before curfew, having been in Friday night detention for hexing Avery and Mulciber yet again at the dinner table. He couldn’t tell the staff why, of course, because it would be his word against theirs and they would surely deny it. He also didn’t want to inadvertently bring some sort of retribution on Lily head, because they would surely think she was the one who had told on them. No, he had to be clever about it. And as satisfying as beating both of them to within an inch of their lives would have been, there was also something to be said for a relentless campaign of moderate hexes. He wanted them to both to be afraid to ever leave their common room again.

When he walked into the dorm, Peter was lying on his bed reading a magazine. Remus and Sirius weren’t there, but there was a distinct aroma of cigarettes and some sort of alcohol that James didn’t quite recognise. It smelt much more lethal than firewhisky, whatever it was.

“Where’s Pads and Moony?” James asked Peter, who didn’t look remotely concerned.

“Dunno, they weren’t here when I got back from Gobstones” he shrugged.

“Someone’s been smoking. And drinking. Don’t you smell that?” he asked Peter, who still looked like he didn’t understand why James was so alarmed.

“Well yeah... so?”

“So, Remus only smokes when Sirius does. And Sirius only smokes this much when he’s... I dunno, it just seems off. And whatever they’ve been drinking smells like it could strip paint.”

“It’s probably Remus’s muggle booze again. Remember that, what was it? Vodcar?”

“I’d rather not” James shuddered. “And why are they drinking without us, anyway?”

“I don’t know. Maybe they’re having _date night_ , or something...”

That didn’t seem likely to James. Remus would have a single drink alone, or have a few drinks with all of them. Nothing in between. Sirius would drink when he was happy, sad, celebrating, lonely, angry, whatever. But not when he was spending time alone with Remus. That was just about the only time he claimed to prefer being sober.

James went over to Sirius’s bed, which was messed up as though someone had been tossing and turning on top of the covers. That wasn’t inherently unusual (Sirius had never been able to sit still in his whole life), but James started peeling back the covers anyway. He had no idea what he was looking for, and quickly gave up. He walked over to Remus’s bed, which looked mildly dishevelled as well. This wasn’t unusual either, as Remus quite often took naps after class. James gave it the same cursory once over and was about to give up and go back to his own bed when he spotted a crumpled piece of parchment on the floor, between Remus’s bed and the bedside table. He picked it up, frowning and unfurled it.

“Shit! Pete, this is bad...” James said as he read, his eyes scanning the letter, frantically re-reading, hoping that he had misunderstood it somehow. Nope, there was nothing to misinterpret. This was real. This was bad.

“What?” Peter asked warily, sitting up and giving James his full attention for the first time.

“Alphard’s dead” James told him gravely.

“Sirius’s uncle Alphard?” Peter asked. James thought it was a stupid question, it wasn’t exactly a common name. But he knew Peter was just trying to get his head around it.

“Yeah. Left Sirius a bit of money apparently. But I doubt he actually cares about that right now.”

“Shit...”

“Yeah, shit” James agreed. “We’d better go and find him.”

Peter had already gotten up off the bed and was standing in the middle of the room, as though waiting for further instruction. James pulled the map out of his pocket and tossed it to Peter.

“Find them” he told him, while he went to his trunk to get the invisibility cloak.

“Um, Remus is on the astronomy tower” Peter told him as James turned around again, the cloak over one arm. “But Sirius isn’t with him.”

“What?” James asked confusedly, dropping the cloak and walking over to look at the map with him. “Where is he then?”

The two of them quickly scoured the map. It didn’t take as long as usual, since most of the students were in their respective common rooms.

“There!” Peter pointed to a spot on the fifth floor. “He’s with... wait, what?”

James squinted at the spot on the map and immediately understood Wormtail’s confusion. What on earth was Sirius doing with Lily Evans?

The two of them were on the move. Heading back to Gryffindor tower, by the looks of things. James exchanged a quizzical look with Peter.

“I guess... we just wait here for him?” James shrugged. The only plausible explanation he could think of was that Lily had found him passed out drunk in a corridor somewhere and was bringing him back. And even that seemed a bit far fetched, surely in that scenario she’d have a teacher deal with him. Or Madame Pomfrey, at the very least.

“We ought to go and get Remus” Peter suggested. “He might not know.”

“He doesn’t know” James said firmly, refusing to believe the alternative. “He wouldn’t just fuck off like that, if he knew.” Peter nodded in agreement.

James hesitated, looking between the door and the map. He knew that Peter was right, but he also wanted to be here when Sirius arrived. There would be nothing worse right now than Sirius thinking that they had all abandoned him. This thought seemed to occur to Peter too.

“I’ll go” he said simply. “I’ll go as Wormtail, it’ll be faster, anyway. You wait here for Sirius.”

“Thanks mate” James said gratefully. “I just want him to know I’m here, you know?”

“Yeah, I know” Peter said understandingly, before abruptly transforming into a rat and scurrying away, under the door.

 

-

 

James waited impatiently in the common room, pacing up and down in front of the fire in an agitated manner. He had no idea what sort of state Sirius might be in when he arrived. Sirius was unpredictable at the best of times, but when he was upset it really could go in any direction. Especially if alcohol was involved, which it usually was. He could be violent. He could be inconsolable. He could be dramatic and morbid. Or he could be manic, pretending that everything was fine. And of course he could flip between all of these behaviours at breakneck speed with no explanation. James was also mildly panicked about what Sirius might have said to Lily. He didn’t have much of a filter at times like this.

James also couldn’t pretend that he wasn’t worried about what Lily might say to Sirius. He hadn’t told a living soul about what had happened in the hospital wing, and he’d been flat out avoiding her ever since. He knew that this was not the best (and certainly not the most mature) tactic for dealing with the situation, but he felt as though he’d been pushed beyond his limits, as far as dealing with this like a rational person went.

She tried to kiss me, he thought, stopping his pacing to look pensively into  the fire. That definitely happened. The terribly awkward look on her face every time she’d laid eyes on him ever since was proof of that. But what did that MEAN? Did she, against all odds, actually kind of maybe sort of _like_ him???

He shook his head and resumed pacing. It didn’t really matter, at the end of the day, why she had done it. The fact was that he had run away. How could he ever possibly explain that to her? God knows what she must think of him now. And even if by some miracle she was willing to forgive such terrible behaviour, it’s not like it could happen again. It’s not like anything could really happen between them. Not so long as Snape was in the picture.

James scowled as he remembered the conversation he and Sirius had had not long after their last confrontation with Snape.

 _“He’s overplaying his hand. I mean, obviously we don’t want Moony to get expelled, but that’s the worst that can happen. He can’t actually have him_ put down _.”_

 _“...He_ could _though, James...”_

James had never in his life seen Sirius look so hopeless. Not even after the confrontation with Regulus. Not even the first time he’d shown up on James’s doorstep over the summer of third year with a black eye and a broken arm. Not even after The Incident when Remus wouldn’t speak to him. And now Alphard was bloody dead, on top of everything else. Why did everything always happen to Sirius?

To James’s great surprise though, when Sirius and Lily finally did arrive back at the common room, Sirius seemed to be... fine. And not that awful, forced pretence of being OK that just barely masked him clearly falling apart underneath. He actually DID seem fine. He and Lily were actually _laughing_ about something as they entered the room.

James bounded over to the them, carefully avoiding Lily’s eye and focusing his attention on Sirius.

“Sirius!” he cried, slightly breathlessly. He stopped awkwardly when he realised he didn’t quite know what to say. He quickly raked his eyes over Sirius’s rather dishevelled appearance. There was dust on his knees from where he’d either fallen over or been crawling on the floor (both were equally likely to be honest) and his knuckles were split on his right hand. He smelt of that same foul alcohol that someone had apparently doused the dorm room in, but he didn’t seem _that_ drunk. He was capable of walking on his own at the very least. And he was actually smiling. He actually looked strangely relieved about something. James couldn’t make head nor tail of it.

Sirius looked rather amused at James’s nonplussed expression and James turned to Lily, opening his mouth to ask her a question, although he hadn’t quite worked out what the question should be yet. She was looking at him with the same slightly patronising expression. James was thoroughly confused (and a fraction annoyed), and turned back to Sirius.

“Why are you fine?” he demanded, realising only after he’d said it how utterly tactless it was. It didn’t seem to bother Sirius at all though.

“Where are Peter and Remus?” he asked calmly, ignoring the question.

“Pete went to go and fetch Remus from the astronomy tower” James replied impatiently. He glanced sideways at Lily, before lowering his voice and leaning in towards Sirius, hopefully so she wouldn’t hear. “We found the letter.”

Sirius gave him a grim smile, while Lily looked offended at James trying to exclude her from the conversation. He didn’t really blame her for that, but he didn’t know how much she knew, and Sirius didn’t exactly like to _share_ his family stuff with people.

“Its alright, mate” Sirius muttered. “I mean, it’s not, but...” he sighed deeply before rallying himself again. He pulled Lily by the hand in towards them, so the three of them were stood in a very close circle. James edged ever so slightly away from her uncomfortably. “I told her” Sirius said quietly to James, jerking his head towards Lily, whose hand he was still holding. James looked between the two of them in confusion.

“About Alphard?” he asked, frowning.

“About Snape” Sirius replied seriously. It took James a second to register what he was talking about.

“About...? Wait! YOU DID WHAT?!”

“I’d a right to know, James!” Lily retorted furiously. “I can’t _believe_ you were going to-“

“Stop it, you two!” Sirius effectively cut her off by putting one hand over her face and gently pushing, causing her to take a couple of steps backwards. He did the same to James, even though he wasn’t actually speaking. Maybe he _was_ drunk, then. He'd do that sort of thing to shut James up any day, but Evans would surely hex him into next week for it. To James’s great surprise though, she didn’t, merely slapping his hand away looking mildly annoyed.

“We need to talk. ALL of us” Sirius told James, his hand still over James’s face. James stared deadpan at him until he removed it.

“Where are they?” Sirius asked again. “Have you got the map?”

 _“Sirius!”_ James hissed. Telling Lily about the thing with Snape was bad enough, but telling her about the Marauders map was tantamount to treason, in their world. For one thing, James wouldn’t put it past her to confiscate it. He glanced to Lily again, who thankfully looked confused. She didn’t know about it then.

“I told you, Peter’s gone to get Moony. They’re coming back here” James said quickly, lest Sirius blurt out anything else incriminating.

“Alright” Sirius gave a curt nod. “To the war room, then.” And with that he marched off in the direction of the dormitory, grabbing a surprised Lily’s hand again and dragging her with him. A few people watched them go in surprise, Dorcas, Mary and Marlene included, who immediately started whispering scandalously to each other.

“It’s not what it looks like!” James said helplessly as he passed them, following them upstairs.

 

-

 

James entered the dorm to see Sirius sat on his own bed on top of the messed up covers having already lit a cigarette. Lily was perched awkwardly on the edge of Remus’s bed opposite him, looking around. The dorm was actually relatively tidy at the moment. What with James focusing most of his attention on Mulciber and Avery, they were in something of a prank dry spell. James still felt strangely self conscious at Lily being in here though and thanked the gods that he hadn't left any underpants lying around or anything.

It was odd, seeing Lily in their bedroom. James must have been looking at her a bit funny as he thought  this, because she started to stand up.

“Sorry, is this yours...?”

“No, no, it’s Remus’s” James replied. Lily cast an uncertain look back at the bed and hesitated before sitting back down. James suppressed a grin as he imagined her wondering what exactly had taken place in that very bed. Sirius evidently picked up on this too.

“That’s James’s” he laughed, gesturing to the other side of the room. “I can guarantee that no-one has had sex in that one, if you’d rather sit over there.”

James made a noise of protest but Lily rather pointedly did not look at him as she sputtered.

“That’s not... I didn’t...”

The blush slowly spreading across her cheeks evidently meant James and Sirius had been correct in their assumptions. James was sure his face was equally red, due to Sirius basically outing him as never having had a girl in the dorm with him before. Sirius merely smirked at the pair of them.

“Chuck us the map, would you” Sirius asked James casually. “See what’s taking those two so long.”

“What map?” Lily asked with interest. James put a hand to his forehead in exasperation.

“ _Sirius!”_ he reprimanded again, but Sirius looked extremely unconcerned.

“Its alright, Prongs” he said airily, waving his hand with the cigarette in it, scattering ash all over the bed. “We can trust her.”

Lily beamed at Sirius and James looked confusedly between the two of them.

“What exactly is going on with you two?” he asked. “Since when were you all buddy-buddy?”

“Since, what? Couple of hours ago?” Sirius asked Lily conversationally, as though they were discussing the weather.

“Hour and a half, I think” Lily replied, just as matter-of-factly. James scowled and they both laughed.

“Oh calm down” Sirius said as James continued to scowl. “This is a good thing. She’s on _our_ side now.”

“And I believe I was promised a drink” Lily added, to Sirius.

“Ah yes, right you are” he replied, jumping up from the bed and going over to Remus’s. He stepped up onto the edge of the bed, reaching over on top of the hangings for something. James watched in amazement as he pulled out a couple of bottles from between the folds of the heavy fabric.

“There’s another gin...” Sirius said, squinting at the label. “Or a... Jack Daniels...? Is that right?”

“Ooh, that one please” Lily replied.

James felt like he’d been transported to some alternate reality. Lily was in their dorm, and she and Sirius were laughing and chatting like old friends. And they were raiding Remus’s secret alcohol stash (which James had been looking for for weeks, by the way) as though they did this every day. He felt like something in his brain was going to snap if someone didn’t start explaining something soon.

Fortunately, he was saved the necessity of having to vocalise this, as Peter and Remus finally arrived, both bursting through the door as though they had run the whole way. They both froze comically, Remus looking at Sirius, who was still hanging off the edge of the bed, bottle in hand, and Peter looking confusedly between Lily and James.

“You thieving bastard” Remus said indignantly, breaking the silence. Everyone in the room except for him roared with laughter. Sirius hopped down from the bed and went over to pat him consolingly on the shoulder.

“Sorry Moons, but I did promise Lily a drink” Sirius said calmly. Remus sighed in a long-suffering sort of way, but as Sirius released his shoulder and turned to walk away Remus looked at him in genuine concern.

“You OK?” he asked softly, putting a delicate hand on Sirius’s bicep, making him stop and turn back towards him. The two of them looked meaningfully at each other and Sirius gently brushed Remus’s hair out of his face, giving him a weak smile. James looked away a little awkwardly. He never quite knew what to do with himself when they shared tender moments like this.

“Yeah, I’m alright” he heard Sirius reply quietly. “We'll talk later, OK?”

“Right. Good” Lily said in a business-like manner, standing up and clapping her hands together. “Now that’s sorted, someone pour the drinks and I’ll tell you all what we’re going to do.”

 

-

 

The Jack Daniels, it transpired, was not whatever foul smelling substance Sirius had been drinking earlier, and it was much nicer than that God awful vodcar thing Remus had shared with them a few weeks ago. It was not unlike firewhisky in fact, although instead of giving James that fortified, empowered feeling it just made his head a little fuzzy.

It also transpired that Lily was NOT one bit happy about them all having kept the thing with Snape from her for such a long time. In fact, she spent a full fifteen minutes lecturing them all on how, not only insulting, but also stupid this was.

“I said we should have told you straight away” Peter had chimed in at this point, desperate for some sort of reprieve from the stern telling-off they were receiving.

“But you DIDN’T, though, did you?” Lily had replied pointedly, which had shut him right up.

She had then gone on to tell them that Sirius had told her everything. Every confrontation with Snape, every ugly thing he had ever said about Remus and Sirius. All the lengths the marauders had each had to go to to keep this secret from her.

“I mean, me and Peter had that thing in the bathroom, but then he told me we couldn’t be friends! Do you have ANY idea how that felt?!” Lily was gesticulating wildly now, on her second glass of Jack Daniels.

“What _thing in the bathroom_?” James demanded, turning to Peter, who looked horrified.

“it’s not how it sounds” he protested hastily.

“And I can’t BELIEVE you didn’t come to me after I told Snape where to go, just after Christmas, when he was assaulting Remus!”

“What? Snape _assaulted_ you?!” James asked in disbelief. What the hell was going on anyway? Did ALL of his friends have secret friendships with Lily Evans behind his back?

Remus however wasn’t looking at James or Lily, he was looking at Sirius, with the air of someone backed into a corner. James could hardly blame him, as Sirius had hold of Remus’s wrist with his bloody-knuckled hand, and was looking furious.

“WHAT is she talking about, Remus?” Sirius demanded. Remus opened his mouth to reply but all the boys turned back to Lily as she smacked her own forehead in frustration.

“REMUS LUPIN” she said in a thunderous voice, sounding so much like McGonagall that it sent an uncomfortable shiver down James’s spine. Sirius even dropped Remus’s wrist in shock.

“I TOLD you to stop this!” she barked at him. “All this, ‘poor me, I’m a werewolf, I don’t deserve happiness’ bullshit! THIS man, right here” she pointed at Sirius with the hand that was holding the drink, and a Sirius flinched backwards to avoid getting a faceful of glass. “He _loves_ you! Do you know how lucky you are?! Because he is a _wonderful_ man” at this, Lily took one of Sirius’s hands into her own, still looking sternly at Remus. Sirius was looking up at Lily in surprise, but also looking extremely pleased. James almost wanted to laugh, but he was overwhelmingly impressed with her no-nonsense approach in getting through to Remus. If anyone else talked to him like that he’d bite their head off, but with Lily he just sat there looking slightly ashamed of himself and took it.

“This man, would do _anything_ for you. He told me he’d _die_ for you. And you are being an absolute bastard by throwing that away!” she dropped Sirius’s hand at this and Remus looked at him in a pained sort of way.

“I told you once and I’m telling you again” Lily went on, now picking up Remus’s hand and placing in on top of Sirius’s. “We are your friends Remus, and we are going to look out for you whether you like it or not. It’s not optional I’m afraid. There’s nothing you can do about it, so just accept it. And try not to be a bastard! Can you do that?!”

There was a second of silence before Remus realised this wasn’t rhetorical and nodded liberally, squeezing Sirius’s hand. Sirius was beaming like this was the best day of his life.

“And YOU” she turned to Sirius, apparently on a roll with dishing out advice. He faltered slightly under the seriousness of her gaze.

“Two” she said simply to him. He looked as confused as James felt at this enigmatic statement.

“Two good Blacks” she said, in the same serious tone and a look of comprehension formed on Sirius’s face. “Not one and a half. Not one and a quarter. Two.”

Sirius looked extremely touched by this, there were actual tears in his eyes as he nodded back at her. James still had no idea what she was talking about, but it obviously meant something to him.

Sirius slid an arm around Remus, pulling him in closer and Remus put a hand affectionately on his knee. They exchanged another one of those meaningful looks, Remus looking apologetic and Sirius smiling understandingly. The two of them looked more at peace than James had seen since before the thing with Snape. He looked back to Lily in wonder.

“So, we’re going to have a little chat with Snape, all five of us” she said, addressing all four of them again as though there had been no interruption. “I’ll do the talking, obviously. No offence to you, but you’re all morons.” James didn't have it in him to be offended by that statement. She was probably right.

“I’m going to tell him that if he so much as breathes a word about Remus to ANYONE I’ll make his life absolute hell. I’ll tell McGonagall that HE was the one who attacked me outside the Slytherin common room. And Sirius will back me up. He’ll say that Regulus told him it was true” she gestured to Sirius at this, who nodded in agreement.

“AND I’ll tell all his Pureblood friends that we used to be going out and that he has a _thing_ for muggles. They won’t like THAT, I’m sure.” She smiled maliciously at that thought and James wanted to lay down in worship at her feet. Who’d have thought? Lily Evans, the most ruthless and devious of all of them.

“Not to mention DAILY hexes. Between you and me, Potter, I think we could quite easily make it so that he can never step foot in the great hall again without sprouting some sort of tentacles.”

“I thought you were a prefect” James said, in awe.

“I am” Lily said, looking at him proudly. “Which means I know every hex that every student in this school has ever used. Don’t underestimate the privileges that come with being a prefect. Tell him, Moony.”

James was thrilled to hear her use Remus's nickname like that. So casually. Like she really was one of the marauders now.

“She’s right, you know. Her arsenal is quite impressive. I’ve seen it” Remus replied casually.

“Lily, I...” James didn’t know what to say. He didn’t remember standing up, but he was on his feet facing her, still looking like her like she was the most incredible thing he’d ever seen. Which, he supposed, right now, she was. She beamed back at him.

“Will you two just bloody kiss already and get it over with” Sirius interjected. Remus elbowed him, while James spluttered in protest. Lily was awkwardly looking away.

“Come on, lads” Remus said to Sirius and Peter, standing up. “Lets give them some privacy. I think they need to talk.” Remus gave James a sympathetic smile which he returned gratefully. Thank God at least one of his friends had some semblance of tact.

To James’s great relief, Sirius and Peter followed him out of the dorm without argument, Peter giving James a supportive smile, Sirius giving him an amused smirk. Remus took hold of Sirius’s hand as they exited the dorm And James watched them go fondly.

As the door closed behind them he turned back to Lily, who was looking very uncomfortable, James felt horribly awkward himself, inwardly cursing Sirius as the sentiment ‘ _just bloody kiss already’_ hung thickly in the air between them.

“That was amazing” James told her, ruffling his hair self consciously. “What you just did for Remus and Sirius, I mean. I’ve been watching them go round in circles for months, not knowing what to do. And you come in and fix it in like two minutes” he laughed disbelievingly.

“Well, I don’t know about _fixing_ it” she replied, uncharacteristically bashful. “I just think Remus needed to hear it, what I said. He should trust Sirius, he really _is_ a great guy.”

“I never thought I’d hear YOU say that” James laughed.

“Yeah” Lily smiled. “It's been a weird night.”

“Yeah...” James agreed. There was an awkward pause in which James started running a hand through his hair again, but stopped himself abruptly when Lily smiled, looking mildly amused. She had often taken the piss out of him in the past for constantly quaffing his hair like that. Ironically, he couldn’t seem to help himself from doing it even more whenever she was around. It was a nervous tic, of sorts.

“I’m sorry” James offered, desperate to break the silence but not sure what else to say. “I really am, for keeping all this from you.”

“Yeah, well... I guess I kind of understand” she replied, hesitating slightly before adding “I can’t believe you let me think you hated me though....”  

James stepped a little closer to her. She was looking at him with almost the same expression she had in the hospital wing, and James’s throat went very dry. He swallowed nervously.

“If it helps, I thought that YOU hated ME for it” he replied, his mouth twitching into a nervous smile.

“I guess I did, a little” she admitted. There was another loaded pause. “I missed that smile” she added warmly, which made James’s smile grow to a wide grin.

“Never thought I’d hear you say THAT either” he tried his very hardest not to smirk. Lily laughed, but not in a malicious way.

“That’s the James Potter I know” she smiled. He hadn't even been conscious of her edging towards him but suddenly they were stood VERY close. He swallowed nervously again.

“Miss me?” he asked, attempting bravado, but his voice came out barely above a whisper.

“Never thought I would, but...” Lily looked down and then back up at him. “You did say you’d wait for me. Haven’t changed your mind, have you?” she looked into his eyes, her expression searching.

“Never” James replied softly, just before their lips touched. She slipped her arms around his shoulders, pulling him closer.


	14. Festivities

“So you do this for every birthday?” Lily asked, as James filled her glass with a generous measure of firewhisky.

“Actually it’s all sort of gone to shit this year” Remus told her. He was sat so close to Sirius he was practically on his lap, one of Sirius’s arms casually slung over his shoulders.

“Yeah” Sirius agreed, giving Remus a slight squeeze, almost strangling him in the process. Remus leaned back into Sirius to give himself more breathing space. “We’ve actually managed to miss every one this year, ‘til now.”

“Ironic really, given that this year is supposed to be the big one” Remus mused. “Coming of age, and all that...”

“What happened?” Lily asked with interest, accepting a cigarette from Sirius, raising her eyebrows playfully at James as he looked at her in surprise as she lit it.

“Full moon, cursed letter and YOU being attacked. In that order” James listed calmly, filling Peter’s glass.

“Cursed letter?” Lily asked, blowing out a long exhale of smoke. She had to admit, as bad of a habit as she knew it was, she was starting to enjoy the occasional cigarette as part of the festivities. She had Sirius to blame for that, she supposed.

“It was nothing” Sirius said airily, waving a hand dismissively.

“It was NOT nothing” Peter interjected. “You were unconscious so you don’t know how dramatic it was. I’ve never seen so much blood” he shuddered.

“Oh my god, I remember that” Lily exclaimed, as James finished pouring the drinks and sat back, slipping an arm around Lily’s waist. “At breakfast, not long before Christmas, right? I thought someone had hexed you...”

“Someone did, in a manner of speaking” Sirius said matter-of-factly, casually flicking his cigarette ash into the empty glass they were all using as an ashtray. “But it was worth it. Got Moony speaking to me again.”

“That’s not _why_ I forgave you, you idiot” Remus replied, but he was smiling.

“It helped though, right?” Sirius smirked. “See, the thing about Moony is, he reckons it’s his job to look after us all” Sirius said to Lily, who laughed at the incredulous look on Remus’s face. “He’s sort of the mum of the group” Sirius added, ruffling Remus’s hair affectionately.

“I wouldn’t have to be if you didn’t fucking _need_ looking after” Remus retorted, pretending to be offended, but he was still grinning. “Should have seen the state of him, Lils. Rambling about how sorry he was and declaring his undying love for me.”

“Yeah, and then he called me a wanker for my troubles” Sirius shook his head, still smiling. “The shit I put up with...”

“Remus! You didn’t?!” Lily laughed.

“Yeah, well” Remus looked a little embarrassed and Lily laughed even more. “He _is,_ isn’t he? Besides” he turned his head to look at Sirius. “I told you I loved you back, didn’t I?”

“Yes, you did” Sirius smiled fondly at him, and the two shared a quick kiss.

“Get a room, you two!” James shouted.

“This IS our room” Sirius responded, but he released Remus and looked at his watch. “Nearly time boys” he added excitedly.

“And girls” James added, nodding to Lily.

“Come on, James, I’m one of the boys now aren’t I?” Lily teased him. The rest of them made noises of assent and James smiled his beautiful, warm smile at her.

“Time!” Sirius declared, looking at his watch and raising his glass with his other hand. “Happy Birthday, Prongs!”

“Happy birthday!” they all chorused, clinking their glasses and drinking. Most of the boys drained their glasses in one, and Peter started refilling. Lily drank hers more slowly, like Remus. She had learnt by now to take it at her own pace, and not try to keep up with James and Sirius.

“Happy birthday, love” she repeated quietly to James, giving him a kiss on the cheek.

“Thanks” he grinned, responding with a peck on the lips.

“Get a room, you two!” Sirius called. Lily laughed.

“This IS my room!” James retorted, sticking two fingers up at Sirius, who merely winked back.

Lily leaned back and surveyed them all, taking it all in. It was strange, she’d only been with the marauders for about a month, but she could hardly imagine ever going back. She looked at her wonderful, idiot boyfriend, whose hair was all stuck up on one side and who was currently toasting so enthusiastically with Peter that the two of them were splashing whisky all over themselves. She smiled affectionately. Perhaps it had taken them a long time to get here, but he really was the most incredible thing that had ever happened to her. She shook her head in disbelief. Who would have thought? James bloody Potter...

She looked at Peter, who seemed to find no greater joy than in times like this – surrounded by friends with not a care in the world. He and James were laughing at something so hard that Peter was almost doubled over and James was wiping tears from his eyes. Lily smiled, feeling so lucky to be included in this remarkable group.

She looked over to Remus and Sirius, who seemed to be slightly in a world of their own, holding hands with their fingers intertwined in front of them. Lily had never before seen a more loved up couple than these two, and she felt privileged not only to know these two wonderful people, but to bear witness to how much they obviously cared for each other. She had to admit, now that she knew the two of them properly she couldn’t imagine a more perfect match. Well, except maybe for James and herself.

She looked back to James, catching his eye and smiling contentedly. He grinned widely and shuffled over to her side.

“So, what do you think?” he asked, lighting a cigarette of his own just as Lily finished hers.

“About what? The toast?” she asked.

“About all of it” he gestured around the room. “Marauders. You’ve got the inside scoop now. What do you think? Still reckon we're all morons?” he smirked.

“I think you’re all mad” Lily laughed. “But you’re alright, I suppose.”

“Good enough for me” he grinned, kissing her on the cheek before bounding off to go and slap Sirius on the back of the head, apparently for ignoring him in favour of Moony. The two of them started wrestling and Remus hastily extracted himself to come and talk to Lily and Peter.

“You have to be mad too, to want in on this” Remus declared.

“It’s fun though, isn’t it?” Lily grinned, finishing her glass and having it immediately refilled by Peter.

“Oh yeah” Peter agreed. “You’ll never have more fun in your life. Don't say we didn't warn you though.”

The three of them looked over to James, who was now wrestling with a large black dog and yelling as it licked his face.

“Not fair!” James roared. “You know I can’t transform in here!”

“Got his antlers stuck in the bed curtains” Remus explained to Lily, who burst out laughing.

Padfoot bound over to them, diving onto Lily’s lap and staring back at James with what could only be described as a mischievous expression, if it were even possible for a dog to pull such a face. Lily felt like she might die laughing. In retaliation James sat himself down on a protesting Remus’s lap, leaning forward so his face was right up against Sirius’s, looking defiant. Sirius transformed back, now sitting on Lily’s knees in the same position as James. Before James had a chance to do or say anything Sirius licked the side of his face, from chin to forehead.

“Urgh!” James cried in disgust, wiping it with his sleeve, while Sirius crowed victoriously, getting up and grabbing the bottle of firewhisky and drinking straight from the bottle.

“Are they always like this?” Lily asked the others.

“Yes” Peter and Remus replied in unison without hesitation.

“Welcome to my world” Remus added with a smirk.

“I think I’m going to like it” Lily smiled, accepting the bottle from Sirius and taking a swig before passing it on.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yeah, so that was a bit all over the place. Hopefully it wasn't too hard to follow though :D
> 
> Btw, if anyone is curious, the title is from the Courteeners song, not Bowie (although both are relevant, I guess).


End file.
